How do I promote my business? - 4 steps

0 392 10 minutes of reading

In this article, you will find out how to promote your business by online for free and for a fee on platforms such as: Facebook, Google and other networks.

Whether you are a new entrepreneur or a seasoned professional looking to increase sales, learning how to effectively market your business is essential to your success.

A thoughtful and well-designed marketing plan will increase awareness of your business, drive sales, and turn your customers into lifelong fans.

The best way to create a cohesive marketing plan is to start by defining your niche, your unique selling proposition and your brand identity. This forms the basis of your plan. Once you've established that base, all of the other pieces will snap into place more easily.

Let's start!

Step 1: Define your brand

Consumers have the whole world at their fingertips when shopping, and their lives are already filled with marketing messages. How can you make sure your voice is heard with all this noise? ...

Defining your niche and brand as narrowly as possible is the best way to be successful in today's crowded market. The more personalized your marketing messages, the more attention people will pay to them.

Your target market, your unique selling proposition, and your brand identity should be intertwined. Try to keep them closely related as you perfect them.

Describe your target market

You may instinctively want to start as large a network as possible in search of customers. Surely everyone could benefit from your amazing products and services, right? ...

But when you try to sell to everyone, your message gets so watered down that no one pays attention.

Instead, define your prospects as precisely as possible. You can choose more than one target group, as long as each is clearly specified. But if you are new to digital marketing, your life will be easier if you start with just one.

Here are some possibilities to refine your market and define your buyer personality:

Kind.
Age range.
Urban vs rural.
Geographical area.
The level of income.
Job.
Level of education.
Personality traits.
The size of the household.
Values.
Spending habits.

Your goal is to create a cohesive buyer image - a portrait of your ideal customer. For example, your client might be a fun-loving, middle-class young man who cares about his health. Or maybe your client is a woman in her XNUMXs who is thinking about raising her children.

Use your customer testimonials to create detailed profiles of your buyer. Consider the needs, struggles, hopes and goals of these people and adjust your digital marketing strategy in result.

Identify your USP before promoting your business

One of the central concepts of marketing is the unique selling proposition or USP.

It is a clear statement of what sets your business apart from your competition and defines your position in the market. Here are some examples of how you might express the USP of popular brands:

Adidas - quality athletic performance equipment.
Google: immediate personalized information.
Apple: cutting edge technology made easy to use.

To define your USP, answer the question "Why should people come to you for X rather than someone else?" " in a single sentence or sentence.

If you've been in business for a while, you might want to survey your customers to find out why they chose you and why they would choose you again.

If you don't have clients yet, set aside a few minutes to jot down the different ideas that come to mind when thinking about your brand, as quickly as possible and without changing your thoughts.

Then choose this list to find the strongest words and ideas and summarize them in one statement.

Define your brand identity

Your brand identity (often just referred to as your brand) should come from your USP, but it's a little different. Your brand is the personality that emanates from your business and can usually be expressed in a single word or a short sentence.

Remember, your target market, USP, and brand identity are meant to work together. Try to define your brand in a way that emphasizes your USP and speaks directly to your target market, it will make a difference when it comes to promoting your business.

Step 2: Find Potential Customers

Now that you know exactly who your market is and what to tell them, you are ready to find ways to get their attention to your brand.

Improve the visibility of your search

Do you want more traffic to your website without spending any money? ...

Optimizing your site for search engines to find is easier than you might think. The key is the SEO...

Pick a long tail keyword. First, find out what phrase your target market might type into a search engine when they search for your products or services ...

Choosing a long tail keyword, a 3-5 word phrase instead of a single word, lowers your competition and helps you rank higher in search results.

Recommended reading: Word search - keys for SEO.

Optimize your content

Place your long tail keyword in as many places as you can, so the search engines know that's what your site is for:

Your URL, if you don't already have one.
The name of your site.
The title of your home page.
The first paragraph of the text.
The meta description of the page.
"Alt" tags for images on the page.

Spread more repetitions of the keyword phrase throughout the text where it feels natural, but don't overdo it. Search engines prioritize websites that use natural language over those that contain keywords they don't belong to.

You can optimize for multiple keywords, but it's easier to start with just one. If you add more keywords later, create a landing page or a blog post for each and optimize that page.

Including search engine optimization tactics in your online marketing plan can help you grow your business for the long term with little to no marketing budget.

Post on your blog to promote your business

Blog posts are a great way to generate organic traffic back to your site for more keywords. You can write them yourself or pay someone to do it. Platforms like Fiverr can help you find experts in the field at an affordable price.

Either way, think about what questions your potential customers might type into a search engine and try to answer them. Use the words from these questions as the long tail keywords for this page.

Recommended reading: How to start a blog step by step.

Create a Google My Business account

Creating an account with Google My Business can pay off in terms of search engine placement, especially if you have a local business, and it's free.

Its listing also lets you control how your business appears on Google Maps and offers options to collect reviews and offer discounts.

Contact the media

Ask yourself: what websites and magazines are your customers reading? ...

Periodically email them a statement, outlining anything interesting or innovative your business does. You can also let them know that you have experts on your staff who are ready to give interviews when needed.

Writing guest posts for popular blogs that your audience reads is another great way for them to “get to know you” and get links back to your website. If your business is local, be sure to include local news sources in your media reach as well.

Advertise online to promote your business

A small budget doesn't have to limit your advertising options. Google and Facebook, the two giants of online advertising, allow you to set your own budget. Better yet, you can go for a "pay-per-click" model, which means you only pay for the advertising that drives traffic to your site.

Advertisements Google

With Google Ads, you just need to set a daily budget and Google multiplies it by 30,4 to reach a monthly maximum. So if you want to spend $ 30 per month on paid Google advertising, set a daily budget of $ 1. When you reach $ 30,40 per month, your ads will stop showing.

Creating display ads for Google is easier than you probably think. Once you've specified the page on your website that you want an ad to link to, Google will extract the title and image.

Google can automatically create ads of different shapes and sizes using these elements, and if you don't like the results, you can edit them.

Facebook Ads

Display advertising on Facebook has very similar characteristics. Facebook also allows you to push posts you create to your Facebook page, setting limits as low as $ 1 per day for sending your post to an audience you define.

The Facebook ads are a great marketing tool to promote your business if you are working on a budget.

Google and Facebook allow you to specify an audience based on age, income, location, and interests. Whether you want your ads to reach young moms who love yoga, retirees who love to decorate, or teens in your town, you can do it with any of the platforms.

Recommended reading: Basic Guide to PPC Marketing.

Use social media wisely

Focus your efforts on social media by choosing just one or two channels to work with at the start. Start with the one that works best for you and where you think you are most likely to connect with your target audience.

For example, Facebook is widely used by people in their XNUMXs and over, while Instagram attracts teens and young adults. Men are more likely to be on Twitter or YouTube, but Pinterest is a good place to reach women.

Reflect your brand in your publications

Whatever social media platforms you choose, create posts that reflect your brand identity and are useful to your audience.

Some of your posts should be about your products, services, and promotions, but also make sure you offer tips, humor, and links that your followers will appreciate. Engage them in a conversation by asking them questions or probing their opinions.

If you already create blog posts, you can use snippets of them as social media posts, with or without links to the blog itself. Find new ways to present the same information, such as recording how-to videos or turning a series of tips into a collection of simple graphics that you can share individually.

If you keep sharing interesting and useful content, your audience will grow organically over time. You can also stimulate this growth with contests or giveaways.

Create contests to promote your business

Some small businesses use contests and giveaways as their primary tool to build social media following, increase brand awareness, and grow their email list.

Here are some tips to make this marketing method work for your business:

Pick a price that excites your target market.
Create posts and advertisements to advertise the contest that also promote your brand and USP.
Engage people by joining your broadcast list and / or by following your social networks.
Give them additional entries if they enter the contest.
Send a welcome email to all new members of your audience.

Step 3: Build relationships with your customers

As your customer base grows and your audience grows through email and social media, be sure to pay as much attention to promoting those connections as creating new ones.

Create an email marketing strategy

While social media allows you to broadcast messages to large groups, email allows you to talk to people individually.

Your email marketing strategy should include a welcome email (or series) when people join your list and a regular email schedule to keep you in touch.

What type of messages should you send?

While you absolutely want your audience to know when you have a new product or promotion, you should also submit information that will entertain, amuse and interest them.

If you regularly share helpful tips, discounts, and resources, your audience will be more likely to open your emails than they would if they expected self-promotion on every post.

See email as an opportunity to build strong relationships with existing and potential customers.

Show them that you understand their needs and want to help them. Give them the opportunity to learn about your brand and learn more about your business. If people connect deeply with your brand, they will become ambassadors who will not only buy from you again, but refer you to their friends.

Email automation

THE email automation allows you to go well beyond sending a welcome email and a monthly newsletter ...

You can set up a system that welcomes new audience members, onboard new customers, reminds visitors of items they've left in their cart, keeps track of who opened a previous message, and gives customers feedback. recommendations on other items similar to the ones they purchased.

With automation, you write the messages and design the series, then your business automatically stays in touch with your customers, even while you are sleeping, on vacation, or managing other aspects of your business.