Starting a small business is a pursuit that thousands of people around the world take up every single year.
In fact, in America alone, there are currently over 33 million small businesses actively working. With numbers like those, you need to do everything you can to stand out from the crowd.
No matter how phenomenal your product is or how useful your services may be, you’re not going to find new customers without great marketing.
Marketing is the life force of a new business, allowing you to find new leads, nurture them, and satisfy your customers at every turn.
But, just running class marketing campaigns isn’t going to cut it – you need to continually improve your campaign strategy and delivery if you’re going to gain traction.
That’s where our marketing tips come in. In this article, we’ll dive into the three best methods for increasing the impact of your small business marketing campaigns.
We’ll cover the following:
- Segment Your Audience ASAP
- Invest in Data and Refine Over Time
- Utilize All of Your Email Marketing Space
Let’s dive right in.
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Segment Your Audience ASAP
Every audience has a different range of customers and potential clients that they could work with. As the business changes, those that will be receptive to what they’re selling will also shift.
Knowing who you’re marketing to is the first step toward any winning campaign. After all, if you don’t know your customers, how can you possibly make something that captures their attention?
Yet, even if you have a general idea of who makes up your audience, that doesn’t mean you should launch blanket campaigns that target all of these people.
Conducting in-depth demographic and psychographic research on your own audience will reveal what kind of people actually make up your target market.
No matter what business you’re in, you’ll rapidly find that there are many groups that like your products.
Trying to cater to all of these people at once won’t get you anywhere. Instead, you should engage with as much audience segmentation as possible.
Audience segmentation is the act of splitting your audience up into small groups. Instead of generic marketing, you can then launch personalized campaigns for each group, which will boost engagement, conversion, and interest in your marketing materials.
A study released by McKinsey proved the above, with their research demonstrating that 71% of customers now expect personalized marketing materials, with 76% of customers feeling frustrated if a company doesn’t personalize.
Especially for small businesses that have limited resources, making every campaign go a little bit further through personalization should be at the top of your to-do list.
Invest In Data And Refine Over Time
Data analytics is the single best tool that you can bring to a small business. With reduced budgets, you want all of your campaigns to gain as much traction as possible for as little as possible.
The very best way of doing this is by taking a data-driven approach and adapting your campaigns over time.
A/B testing is where you release two marketing materials with one very slight change. That could be a different call to action or a distinct color scheme.
By putting analytics on the materials, you can then work out from the data which gets more interactions.
From there, you can start to continuously iterate your marketing materials. Over time, you’ll create campaigns that your customers respond well to.
While this is a slower tactic to employ, it’s one that will radically change the face of your customer operations.
What’s so powerful about investing in data-driven marketing tools is that they work on absolutely all of your mediums. You can record social media interactions, email marketing interactions, PPC ads, and so on.
There is no limit to what you can capture data on, meaning there is no limit to what you can improve.
By focusing on making your marketing department data-driven from an early stage, your business will be much better prepared to capture new leads and please your current audience base.
Utilize All of Your Email Marketing Space
Email marketing is one of the most effective methods of contacting customers, having held this title for decades. That said, this communication channel is also one that’s easy to get wrong.
Email is a delicate medium, requiring people to open up the email before getting to your real content. Simply put: a lot can go wrong.
That’s why it’s vital to utilize the email format to its full extent. There are two key ways of doing this:
Subject Lines
All of your emails need a punchy subject line that gets people’s attention. Depending on your audience, what this copy is will vary. However, all great subject lines invite people in for more. Here are a few styles that you could try out:
- Curiosity – For some, a cliffhanger in your subject line will intrigue the audience, compelling them to open your email.
- CTA – A sales CTA like 10% off or another discount often gets higher open rates.
- Personalization – A subject line that includes the recipient’s name and a direct message is more likely to connect.
Email Signatures
Once your subject line has ensured that someone will click on your email, you now need to work to make sure they follow through.
While your actual email copy may be enough to engage them, there’s an even better way – using email signatures.
An email signature gives you additional space to include more marketing materials. Alongside contact and professional information, you can use this space as a way of adding internal ads to your emails, including case studies, or featuring photos of your best-selling products.
Especially with how easy signature creator tools make constructing a great email signature, make sure you don’t waste this marketing medium.
Email marketing can be a world-class marketing tool – but only if you use it to its fullest extent!
Final Thoughts
When it comes to your small business, you can’t let yourself fade into the background. Instead, by using the tips that we’ve shared in this article, you’ll be able to continually improve your marketing strategies over time.
From refining your email marketing strategy by including more material to optimizing your campaigns with data, all these strategies will go a long way.
If you’re a small business, there is never a perfect time to get started with improving your marketing campaigns.
The earlier that you begin, the sooner you’ll see results. Start with these three initial tips and then push further into the world of growth marketing for small businesses. Best of luck!
