As an entrepreneur, marketing may be one of the last things on your mind. With the day to day running of your business, endless meetings, life admin and everything else getting in the way – marketing yourself as a business is often forgotten, despite how important it can be when it comes to bringing on new customers and clients.
Whether you don’t know where to start, you don’t have the time or you can’t afford to invest loads of money into marketing strategies – we want to help. With that in mind, here are 13 easy ways to improve your marketing as an entrepreneur or small business:
Write Regular Content For Your Blog
Having a blog that is updated regularly is a great way to get new visitors to your site, ultimately increasing the number of potential customers you have. Writing engaging content that people relate to and want to share is the key to attracting lots of traffic, so focussing some time on ensuring your website’s blog is up to date is vital to marketing success.
Invest Your Efforts Into Social Media Marketing
Over the last few years, social media marketing has become one of the most valuable ways to market your business. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, small business or large corporation – getting social can be extremely beneficial.
Although it’s not entirely free in terms of the time that has to be put into it, it can be a pretty inexpensive way to bring new potential customers to your site.
Hire Someone Who Can Help
If you want to put some effort into your marketing strategy but are finding you don’t have the time to do it, why not considering hiring someone to help?
Bringing on a freelancer to do a couple of hours marketing activity for you each week could be an inexpensive way to increase your customer base, with it more than paying for itself as soon as a couple of new customers are on board.
Do A/B Testing To Find Out What Works Best For You
If you’re unsure which marketing methods will work best for you, a little bit of A/B testing can’t hurt. Run a couple of experiments to find out which methods are best suited to your business. It’s a great way to save time and have a better idea of what your business needs in terms of marketing.
Whether it’s using Facebook Ads or Instagram Ads, sending out emails to subscribers or mailing them physically – you want to know what gets the best possible results as soon as possible.
Go On A Course Or Further Your Education
It’s never too late to learn something new that can improve your business. Whether you’re completely new to marketing and want to take a beginners course, or you’re a graduate looking to do an Online MBA in management or marketing – learning something new could be the exact thing your business needs.
If you’re looking for something a little bit more specific, there are lots of different courses online that are now run by influential people in the marketing industry.
They want to share their successes with you and let you know exactly how they got to where they are today. Whilst these aren’t accredited courses, they’re a great way to learn from some of the best in the industry.
Use Pay Per Click Marketing To Increase Your Page Views
Whilst it isn’t always cheap, Pay Per Click marketing tools are a great way to get relevant traffic to your site.
Using specific targeting you can show ads to people that would be interested in your products on Google, Facebook and Instagram. They may not always click, but it’s one of the most successful ways to get very well targeted traffic to your site.
Learn How To Optimise Your Site For Search Engines
Search Engine Optimisation isn’t for the faint-hearted, but once you have it mastered it can be an incredible tool for your business. Using a number of tips and tricks you can edit the content on your site that search engines see it as more favourable and show it higher up in their results.
As most people don’t go past the first page of results when they’re searching for something, being as high up as possible is vital to your business’ success. For more information, you can visit this guide to Search Engine Optimisation.
Use Canva To Create On Brand Graphics
There are lots of free tools and apps available online to create graphics that can be used across your business, however, Canva is one of the best.
Perfect for social media and email graphics, Canva has ready to go templates for practically every social media. You can use their suggestions and add in your own branding elements, or start completely from scratch using the correct measurements required for each platform.
Speak To A Professional For Advice
If you are really struggling to understand what strategies are best for your business, there are lots of different consultants and specialists out there that you can speak to. Whilst their advice doesn’t come for free, it’s a great way to get an outsiders perspective – one that knows what they’re talking about too!
Ensure You Have Consistent Branding Throughout
Having consistent branding throughout your business is incredibly important when you’re using several different channels for marketing. Make sure your blog content, social media and any other marketing materials you create all use the same branding and you will soon become recognisable in your busy industry.
Allocate A Select Amount Of Time Each Week To Work On Your Marketing
Having a set amount of time that you allocate to marketing each week can be extremely beneficial it will mean you won’t feel as though you’re being pulled away from your business to work on marketing. If it’s actually allocated, then you have to do it right?
Whether you do a couple of hours on a Friday afternoon or start your week working ON your business, you’ll be surprised how much difference just a couple of hours will make.
Follow Influential People In The Industry
There are so many influential people in the marketing industry that share their tips every single day. Whether it’s an Instagram Live, a free handy guide you can download or an informative blog post – there’s so much information out there for you to go out and find.
Following these people will not only help you pick up some tips, but it should be a great way to motivate yourself into working on your marketing.
Consider Email Marketing To Regularly Update New And Existing Customers
Email marketing is the perfect way to keep in touch with your existing customers, but also a great way to bring new ones on board. Once you have encouraged people to sign up to your email list (it could be with a freebie or a discount code) you can regularly email them about new products and services, or let them know when you have offers and deals on.
Whilst it does take some time, it’s a way to get yourself directly into the inboxes of people who you already know are interested in your brand. For tips on building your own email list and getting started with email marketing, you can visit this handy guide.