For any business, marketing is the key determinant to its success. Business marketing is necessary to attract clients and customers by using unique and creative methods. Whenever a business is starting off, it needs to think about its marketing strategy beforehand. Initially, businesses tend to have lower budgets for marketing therefore they look for the cheapest and effective marketing strategies. Text message marketing, Email marketing, Social media marketing, SEO and Content marketing are some of the marketing techniques that are commonly used by businesses to promote themselves.
Text Message Marketing
With people using their mobile phones almost every day, sending text messages to market a business is one of the most effective methods. When compared to other marketing techniques, text message marketing is one of the cheapest and effective method since it targets a large audience at an affordable rate. Moreover, businesses tend to choose this method for bulk messaging hence the cost per message decreases as the number of messages increases. Sending text messages to customers and clients has become a trend overtime since 98% of the text messages sent are opened within 3 minutes by the recipient. More importantly, it is convenient for any business to opt for this technique since it can type out one message and send it to the entire contact list.
Email Marketing
Another marketing method is
Social Media Marketing
Social media has become the perfect platform for businesses to market themselves. The main concept is to create social media accounts and maintain them by posting on a regular basis. Social media websites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have made it easier for businesses to keep direct interaction with their customers. Moreover, majority of the population not only uses it but they are also influenced by contents uploaded on these platforms. There is up to a 57.5% more chance of people buying from a business if they follow it on social media.
Facebook has become a popular social media application that is now available on mobile phones so people can easily access it. This platform has become convenient for businesses to advertise themselves and their products by paying a small amount. Facebook Ads shows up on the newsfeeds whenever they are scrolling through their Facebook feeds. This application is also capable of analyzing what users are searching for and then bring up the advertisements that are most related to the searches. This technique helps the businesses target the users who are looking for their products and services. If a Facebook user searches for online clothing stores, Facebook will filter the adverts and show the user adverts related to online clothing store. Even though this interaction with the customers is decided by the social media application, it is one way of business marketing.
Facebook Pages
Another important marketing method for a business is to create a Facebook page. These pages keep followers updated with new information while also maintaining direct communication them. The Facebook page of a business includes all the details of a business and attracts customers with interesting and interactive posts. These posts are updated on a regular basis so followers maintain interest in the business and its services. If a home delivery service creates a Facebook page, it can use it as a platform to gain feedback from clients about its services. Moreover, for special occasions it can post about special discounts available to its followers.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization is not a new term for marketing. SEO is used for small and large businesses using keywords attached to the respective business. With this marketing technique, a business chooses some keywords that it can use within its blogs or website. After this, it pays a server, like Google, to make sure that the business shows up in the top options when users search for those keywords. Apart from bringing the business to the forefront, SEO tends to increase trust of customers towards a business. Google currently owns 75% of the search engine market and therefore, makes a large impact on people who uses it. With such a large share of the search engine market, using Google to post SEO keywords increases the credibility of the business since people know that Google will show the right options. A clothing business can choose keywords like ‘fashion’, ‘trendy’, ‘latest’ and others so when a user searches Google using these keywords, the business and its website show up as the most preferred options.
Official Website
When starting off, a key feature that a business needs to look at, is creating its own website. An official website of a business helps in giving it an identity and brands the business. This marketing technique also allures customers by showing them how advanced the business is both technologically and physically. A website describes the business and defines its horizons while also informing the customers about new offers, products and franchises of the business. The website provides and identity to the business and helps it stand out from other competitors in the market. The main part is to update the website regularly, make it user friendly as well as accessible from mobile phones. A business can promote its website using text message marketing or email marketing as well. A business can attach the link of its website in text messages that are sent to customers or in Emails so they can access it with one click.
Google Pay Per Click (PPC)
Similar to Facebook advertisements, Google Pay Per Click (PPC) is another way of business marketing. SEO or search engine advertisements are one form of Google PPC as well. However, Google Ads is how the marketing technique of PPC is initiated. Whenever a business posts Ads through Google, it has to pay when a user clicks on the advert. Even though this method might sound expensive, it is not. If a business has to pay $2 for each click that a user makes but ends up making a profit of $100 from that click, it is not a high price to pay. However, when choosing an advert, a business needs to be quick since Google tends to post Ads through a bidding system where the highest bidding business can post its advert. This is one of the most desired methods of business marketing since Google is the most popular search engine and gets the most amount of traffic as well. By posting attractive and creative advert, a business can use Google to get the attention it really needs. Moreover, the frequency of the advertisements showing up depends on the keywords chosen and the matching types that a business selects. Most importantly, the keywords should be relevant to the business and the landing pages linked to Ads should be optimized for high quality.
Conclusion
For business marketing, it is mandatory to use the right techniques to attract the right kind of people towards the business. Initially, when starting up, a business needs to focus on its target audience and customers and inviting them to events hosted by the business. Moreover, when increasing clientele, resources should be used on social media marketing using the help of Facebook Ads and pages where a direct communication thread with the customers can also be maintained. It is understandable if a new small business looks for cost minimizing strategies such as mass text messaging and Email marketing. None the less, it is also important to understand that with time, a business needs to evolve its marketing strategy to keep enthusiasm within the customers alive. Using just one marketing method does not promote a business fully. Support of other techniques should also be included to make the business a huge success.