Prevent your business from stalling as your marketing falls off track, or because you don’t know the best avenues to market and grow. Knowing how to reach out, gain more customers, and increase your business volume will help you grow your business regardless of the economy’s state.
webandprintteam.com gathered the following information and tips on how to efficiently grow your business, tend to your customers, and increase your revenue.
Marketing Your Business
Your business’ marketing strategy should include multiple ways to reach your consumers. Emphasize or invest in effective marketing methods and dial back spending on the less successful methods. Only through continuous testing will you find the optimal vocabulary, imagery, and strategy that will significantly increase conversion rates. Here are several marketing strategies to get you moving towards a growing, successful business:
Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)
Every Door Direct Mail® (EDDM®) is a targeted bulk mailing strategy offered by the United States Postal Service (USPS), allowing your marketing strategy to reach an entire neighborhood of potential customers without creating a mailing list or knowing their actual addresses. It’s simple; choose the mailing routes you determine as priorities (by neighborhood, city, or ZIP code), and your flyers / postcard mailers will be delivered to each active address on those routes.
You can orchestrate your EDDM mailings in three easy steps:
Step 1 – Define Your Marketing Strategy and Goals
Step 2 – Create or Use an Existing USPS.com Account
Step 3 – Design and Print Your Mail Pieces
Consider these advantages:
- Direct mail is interactive, attractive, and tangible
- EDDM is easily shared between household members and friends
- Your Mailers can be creative and unique
- Direct mail campaigns pair nicely with follow-up or interactive digital campaigns
Note: There are 2 types of EDDM®, one being “retail” and the other “Business Mail Entry Unit.” EDDM® Retail won’t require you to have a mailing permit, is limited to standard flats (postcards), and permits a maximum of 5,000 daily pieces. EDDM® BMEU (Business Mail Entry Unit) requires bulk-mail permitting and provides more flexibility regarding what material may be mailed. Check that your printing company can handle printing and potentially mailing for your EDDM campaign.
Guerilla Marketing
In advertising terms, guerilla does not refer to animals, rebellions, or conflict. Guerilla marketing is an unconventional marketing tactic meant to build brand awareness without interfering with the target audience.
This strategy promotes publicity by utilizing methods designed to stir up wonder, surprise, or shock among the general public. There are four types of tactics. Consider the following:
Indoor – Indoor tactics may include additions in preexisting environments. These add-ons can be strategically placing temporary artwork or putting something removable on a structure or statue. These instances occur indoors, like shops, public buildings, or public transportation vehicles and stations.
Outdoor – Outdoor guerilla marketing uses the same concept as indoor, but it takes place in outside areas, like parks, on the street, or in public plazas. Consider integrating promotional swag, giveaways, and functional promo materials (pens, pencils, branded post-its, etc.) as a tactic to further stretch your business’ exposure and produce a more impactful impression.
Ambush Event – Marketers can select a space or location that is guaranteed to have an audience. In-progress occurrences, like sports games or concerts, are commonly used (with the host’s express permission). The brand promotes its product or services in an impactful way, like a flash mob, giveaway, or audience plant.
Experiential – This type of guerilla marketing combines all of the above and encourages your audience to increase interactions with your brand.
Before investing in these efforts, be sure to have a marketing funnel set up and a strategic plan to capture and convert any new customers and attention you attract.
Social Media Platforms
With more than half the global population using social media platforms, it is no longer an option for companies to have an online presence. Businesses of all sizes utilize social media to grow their online presence, gain followers, and directly connect with their audiences. However, the number of platforms available and their different uses can make building your online brand feel like an overly challenging task. Whether you are new to this or well-seasoned, there is always room for improvement. Consider these 5 tips to better your social media performance and successfully market your brand.
1 – Create a Strategy inclusive of your image, online frequency, keywords, hashtags, and overall presentation.
2 – Be Consistent in your online engagement, postings, and audience interactions.
3 – Create Engaging & Interesting Content that your audience is attracted to and wants more of. Posting a story in parts will keep your audience coming back repeatedly.
4 – Engagement is a key factor in your online popularity. Your audience is following you because they relate to you or your product, and they will tell you their thought if you reach out to them.
5 – Track and Analyze Metrics is an absolute must in determining what is works and what falls flat or below expectations.
Creating a targeted and effective social media marketing strategy will help improve your performance online. Utilizing unique ways to interact with your audience will increase your reach. And most importantly, analyzing your metrics will help you determine whether or not you are using the right marketing tactics.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential component of all forms of digital marketing success because online consumers are conducting trillions of searches each year to learn about people, companies, products, and services. SEO is the process of making incremental website improvements that increase visibility following user search queries related to a website’s business, keywords, or topic. Best SEO practices include relevant keyword research, developing superior-quality content that matches consumers’ search queries (efficiently answering their questions), linking to and from high-authority websites, and meticulously tracking results.
The stronger your website’s visibility is to search engines, the stronger your digital properties will perform in attracting attention, commanding a higher level of engagement, and driving revenue. Just consider these statistics:
- Search engines are the starting point for nearly 70% of all online experiences.
- Organic search drives over 50% of all website traffic.
- Google owns over 91% of all search engine market share.
- A #1 organic position on Google can result in a click-through rate (CTR) of nearly 35%.
Brands and business owners appreciate SEO marketing because it is an intentional, data-driven approach to matching consumers with companies that can meet their needs and expectations. SEO, undoubtedly, is the most cost-effective way for marketers to reach their consumers in the moments that matter, delivering on the promise to provide answers.
Growing Your Business
In this article, you discovered essential information and tips on several ways to efficiently and quickly grow your business.
Marketing your business directly to your audience with the intention of answering their questions or solving their problems will help you convert more of your audience into paying customers and provide the resources for your business to grow.
Haphazardly throwing out flyers and business cards is not a strategy and will leave your business vulnerable and without the revenue you had hoped.
Sources:
usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm
federalregister.gov/documents/2012/10/15/2012-25059/every-door-direct-mail-retail
uspsoig.gov/tags/eddm
ooligan.pdx.edu/how-to-guerrilla/
bu.edu/prlab/2022/03/01/5-tips-to-successful-social-media-marketing/
degree.lamar.edu/articles/undergraduate/search-engine-optimization/