Marketing is essential for the success of any business, especially startups. Here are 8 tips to take your marketing efforts to the next level!

Running any business takes time, energy and a serious commitment.

But above and beyond the rigor of daily operations, there is the added work of everything that goes into the marketing of your business.

Your marketing efforts are vital though. If you let them slide, your business will suffer.

Which leaves you with one important question:

Are You Doing Enough with Your Marketing Efforts?

Read on to discover eight things you should be doing that will help you take your marketing efforts to the next level.

1. Create the Right Content

You know creating content is important. But are you making the most of your content marketing campaign?

This is one of those quality over quantity situations. Yes, the more posts you have, the more likely you are to place higher in a search.

But if you’re just producing quantity and writing all over the place without focusing on your niche, you’re losing readers. Once you establish an audience with your niche, then you can focus on sub-niches.

One way to do this is to check out some analytics software and review the posts that are most popular. Organize those posts by category and content, and then focus your writing on similar material.

When your content is more popular with your audience, it ultimately becomes more valuable to you.

2. Cut down on Social Media Channels

Is your online presence all over the place?

The dominating belief in business has been to spread yourself wide across social medial channels. But now that belief is getting challenged.

Going wide means spreading yourself too thin and diluting your marketing efforts.

Take a look at your social media channels and take note of those that are driving most of your revenue. It doesn’t make sense to waste time and money on channels and platforms that deliver little return.

Plus, depending on your niche, some platforms perform better than others. For instance, if you’re in a highly creative industry, you’ll fare better on Pinterest than LinkedIn.

Think about cutting down on the number of social media channels you’re using and focus on the ones that proving effective. Then you can monitor them closely, focus your marketing efforts there and see an improved ROI.

3. Use a Texting Platform

The cool thing about text messaging is it reaches your customers right where they are. You can use it to send special offers, alerts for limited time offers and reminders for upcoming events as they’re happening.

No matter how you use it, text messaging is one of the most personal and accessible ways to connect with your customers.

4. Know Who Your Best Customers Are

Hugely successful companies can almost guarantee a significant income every time they release something new.

It isn’t because they’re just confident that everyone is going to love what they are offering. Rather, they have a loyal base of customers who are passionate the company and everything they produce.

And it really comes down to figuring out how to include customers in your marketing efforts.

It’s tempting to focus on the number of customers you’re bringing in. Instead, think about what each customer is worth to you. Wouldn’t you rather have 10 customers that are worth $1,000 each than 100 customers that only purchase $1 worth of products and then never return?

Spend more on retaining your most loyal customers so that they’ll buy more of the products they already love. The result will be a significant increase in your ROI.

5. Create A Corporate Giving Campaign

Companies that give back are businesses that customers love.

In today’s corporate climate, there is a growing interest and appreciation for businesses that launch meaningful campaigns. So it’s a good idea to do it.

You can choose the cause that’s most important to you, but consider contributing to something that is tied to your brand or product in some way. For example, a restaurant may choose to contribute to a food bank, while an apparel company could promote sustainable and organic agricultural practices for growing cotton.

Be sure to include a page about your campaign on your website. That way, your customers can look into it without feeling that you’re being pushy or bragging about your donation.

You might also want to highlight the work that your charity recipients are doing on your social media pages.

Another way to give back is to promote matching grants or challenge grants. This encourages consumers to donate to charity because they know that the amount of their donation will be matched by your company to maximize its impact.

6. Segment Your Audience

Bring some personalization to your business by creating special offers for specific customer segments.

For example, say you own a hair salon and run a special promotion of “buy an adult haircut and get a child’s haircut free.” It gets great response and you notice that most of the respondents are professional working mothers.

From there you can target that specific customer group for other offers, such as a discount on hair products.

You want to target your offers so that they reach the audience that’s most likely to respond. You can make this easier by setting up your website to provide different pathways for these specific customers.

7. Pay Attention to the Trends

Trends come and go quickly. But following those trends, to some extent, is important if you want to be relevant in today’s marketplace.

Just remember that consumers’ wants and needs are constantly changing. What’s hot now may be all but forgotten six months from now. Monitoring and following the trends will give you the best possible ROI.

Be willing to be flexible and adapt to changing situations. Experimentation is part of what it means to be successful in your marketing efforts, so don’t be afraid to step outside the box.

8. Ask Questions

It’s simple but incredibly powerful. Because the answers to those questions will help you to customize your offerings and determine the way you market them.

Consider these:

• Hand out in-store questionnaires
• Ask questions on your successful social media platforms
• Implement a text marketing campaign
• Use email to send out after-sale surveys

Getting feedback from your customers about what they like, dislike and love is priceless information. And it will allow you to employ marketing efforts to better serve them in the future.

Put Your Marketing Efforts to Work for You!

Now that you know some of the tricks of the trade, it’s time for you to put them in action and start seeing some serious ROI.

But if you’re still feeling unsure about whether the marketing you’re doing for your business or startup is working for you, then connect with me today!

I can help you succeed.