by Karen Petrauskas | Aug 22, 2018
If you own or run a small business you could be asking yourself whether it’s worth the time and effort in writing a regular blog. Our answer to that question is “Yes!”.
Blogging is an inexpensive marketing material that can be used over and over again and can be used for driving traffic to your website, highlighting your industry experience or even reaching new and potential clients. It’s an all-round marketing tool that is definitely worth the effort.
In our opinion it is one of the most valuable marketing tools that you can keep in your arsenal. If you’re not yet blogging for your business, it’s time to start! If you’ve not got the time, either a) create time or b) outsource this task – it’s extremely important for your business and for business growth.
Here are our top 7 reasons why blogging is important for business:
Personal Development
While the purpose of blogging is for your audience, it’s a great place to enhance your own personal development. Blogging can open up opportunities for you that you were not expecting and allow you to express your interests and passions to an audience that is really hungry for your content.
The more you write, the more knowledge you have. The research that is involved in writing opens up a world of industry knowledge and can help build your confidence and share opinions.
It can be challenging to write a blog but when you are passionate about a subject, you have the power to express who you are and what your values are.
Tells a story
A blog is a chance to tell your brand’s story, it’s a chance to offer insight and background of who you are and what you value, offer and represent as a brand. You are able to share ideas and customer experiences, challenges and how you’ve overcome them. You can share about the staff or team that make up your business and what experience they bring to the company. There’s so much you can do to highlight your brand’s ethos and showcase everything that you have to offer – make the most of the opportunity to talk about your business and then use your blogs on your social media platforms so that it can be seen by as many people as possible.
Builds an audience
Blogging is a place where you can create value and build an audience of people who are interested in what you have to offer. You’re not writing for just anyone, you are writing for people who want to hear what you’re talking about. Aim your words to those people, this may not be exactly what you would want to hear, but understanding your audience and providing value to their needs will increase your readership and help you stand out as a thought leader.
Builds discipline
Getting in the habit of writing is a good thing! It builds discipline and routine into your marketing plan and gives you something to focus on, on a regular basis. Whether you set yourself a weekly task or allocate one day a month to writing, it shapes you into a writer’s mindset and gives you good practice.
It boosts offline marketing
When people see the content you’re writing, the value that you’re providing, this can often lead to offline opportunities. Speaking at events, writing for magazines or articles, writing a book. It allows your voice to be heard outside of internet circles and enables you to do bigger things with your content. Blogging is not just about bringing people to your website (although that is a large part), it is about showcasing who you are, what your business represents and the industry knowledge that you have. Use your blog to delve into different areas that you may not have been able to in the past. With your confidence and discipline building, push yourself to do more with your business and speak to a wider audience.
Cost effective
Marketing can be expensive with all the different aspects that you could be paying for, however blogging is completely free! The only cost is your time and as a business owner, building marketing into your business plan is a must. By blogging you’re not paying for magazine space, you’re not paying for a TV or radio advert, you’re not even paying for banner adverts (in this context), you are simply writing content for your website which has the potential to be seen by many people, and the more you blog, the more people will see your content. Once your content is out there, it’s there forever which is an extremely cost-effective way to market your business!
Blogging is inspiring
When you start to write, you start to see more opportunities in the world around you. You become inspired by what’s around you, what you see and hear and the things happening in the world. Even just walking down the street can give you inspiration for your next blog post!
There are many reasons to blog for your business and if you are a small business, this is your chance to have a voice and to be heard in a busy online world. Make your voice count, allow your business to stand out over your competition and attract customers by being an inspiration and giving value and knowledge in all that you write about.
If you’d like to provide a blog for you business but are not sure where to start, we offer a content marketing package and can write your content for you! There’s really no reason not to blog! If you’d like advice or help moving forward, get in touch.
by Karen Petrauskas | Jul 19, 2018
One of the main ways to sustain a healthy and growing business is to keep a steady customer base. A company doing well will typically see the 80/20 rule; 80 percent of its business coming from 20 percent of its customer base.
If you are looking to grow your business and to see it thrive well into later years, you need to start building loyalty with your customers and building relationships to keep them happy.
Communication is key
Keeping customers informed of what’s happening within your business, offers and up to date information will allow your customers to feel part of the life of your business. This could be via a number of mediums including newsletters, emails, social media or even a phone call but the fact that you are telling your customers about the latest news goes a long way.
You don’t need to be pushing sales at your customers all the time. Communications can be friendly, informative snippets along with a “how are you doing?’ every once in a while. People appreciate communication and it goes a long way in building customer relationships.
Always go above and beyond
This goes without saying in business, if you have a customer then you want to treat them right and maintain that customer for future potential sales. By going above and beyond in what you do for them at the start of their customer experience with you, they will know that you care about them and that you want their business.
It doesn’t take much to do a little extra, as Tesco’s motto says “Every Little Helps” and yes that might be in a different context but it’s the same principle – every little bit helps for your customers and you have an opportunity to show each and every client that you are there to serve them, along with wanting to provide 100% and beyond.
Be a problem solver – Be positive
It’s great when things are going well, but how do you deal with situations when they go slightly pear-shaped? How do you react with customers when they have a complaint or something to share?
As you build your business, you will come along characters that will test your patience and try to get something for nothing. But you are the face of your business and your reputation matters. Building a good reputation can take years but it only takes one or two customers to not like your practice to tear that reputation down.
Therefore, try to solve or defuse a situation rather than rise to it. Always try to show a positive attitude towards all customers, whether you like what is happening or not. You are more likely to have a positive outcome and a good response if you act in a positive manner and show professionalism.
Promote brand awareness
This is number one in a business marketing strategy but it can often be put on hold or forgotten about when other aspects of business take over. By promoting your brand and showcasing what you are about, you are building a base of followers who will get to know, love and understand who you are and what your business is about. Building a business takes trust and people need to trust your brand in order to feel comfortable buying from you. When you build on your brand awareness, they are given opportunities of seeing more and more about what you do and how you can benefit them or provide a service for what they are looking for.
Always target your brand awareness campaigns to people who are really going to want to buy from you. It’s vital to understand your target audience and to know what it is they are looking for so you can provide the solution for them. Understanding your audience will bring you closer to them and provide a way in to build relationships that build customer loyalty and longevity.
Show who you really are
It’s great to showcase your business and everything that it has to offer, it’s one step further to showcase who you are, as the business owner. People love stories and customers feel connected when they know there is a human behind all the technology. You may not feel comfortable speaking on video or promoting yourself but it will go a long way in building customer relationships and allowing customers to know the real you behind the business.
Video marketing is definitely the future. And if you’re not doing it now, you need to be very soon! It doesn’t have to be long drawn out videos, it can simply be you saying hi and and introducing yourself as the business owner. Pin a video post to the top of your social media posts so that each new customer can see the voice and face behind the company they are looking to engage with. It will go a long way – try it today!
If you’re still unsure on what impact your video marketing could have, check out these 100 video stats you should know – and see how you could integrate them into your marketing objective.
Get engaging!
We say it all the time but the key to building a loyal customer base is by engaging with them on a daily basis. This falls in with the communication point but it goes a little deeper. If you’re using social media to attract new customers and to retain your current ones too (and if you’re not using social media for business then please get in touch!), your followers are looking to engage with your business. Give them posts that they can reply to or share with their friends. Post articles that relate to their situation. Get your writing head on and create some posts or articles that really speak to the heart of your audience. When they see that you are actually speaking to them on a personal level, they will share that with their friends and family, they will recommend your business to others and they will start to love who you are which in turn leads them to be a loyal customer.
Take these points on board and use them to grow your business. Building a loyalty with your customers is so important if you want longevity in your business. Sustaining and maintaining your client base doesn’t have to be hard work but it does need dedication and commitment to see it work.
If you’re looking to reach a wider audience through social media or would like to know more about creating an effective marketing campaign, get in touch today!
by Karen Petrauskas | Jun 6, 2018
The word strategy might sound a bit daunting but putting together a business strategy and a marketing strategy is a vital part of any business success. To see business growth and success over a period of time, it’s vital to plan out everything that needs to be done in order to achieve this.
The same goes with a social media strategy. This will fall into your marketing planning but social media is such a large part everyday life that it needs to be incorporated into the mix. People are mobile and people carry their mobile devices with them wherever they go. In order to reach a target audience directly – you need to be at the heart of where they are.
What is a social media strategy?
The basis to a strategy is a summary and plan of everything that you plan to do in order to see a result or achieve a certain goal. It will guide the way that you manage your social media, the way you engage with the audience and will allow you to see if you on track or need to change direction.
This will play a part in every post, tweet or comment that you do within all your social media platforms, keeping the same tone of voice throughout.
Here are 5 ways to get you started with a social media strategy:
Get SMART
Each of your goals should be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
This is the smart framework that will align your goals with real achievements, rather than guessing or taking things by chance. Every goal or action you take should be measured against the smart framework knowing that you will keep everything tied together – with a plan for how to execute details.
The social media plan needs to align with your overall marketing strategy. This can be started by establishing 3-4 goals that you want to achieve and then working out a plan of how to achieve these.
Love your audience
The most vital stage of your social media plan comes down to understanding your audience. In order to meet their needs and provide a service that they will actually want to buy into, you need to fully understanding them. When you start to understand and love what they love, sharing tips, advice or general information that they are actually interested in – then they will start to engage, share and comment – giving you ground to be able to give great customer service and to build working relationships.
If you love your audience and they know it – they will start to love and trust your brand, making it so much easier to build your business and see growth for the future.
Conduct a social media audit
If you’ve already been using social media for your business but are finding it difficult to grow or establish a connection with your audience, then perhaps it’s time to do a social media audit in order to find out what’s going on.
What does this entail? Try answering these questions…
Look through all your social media channels – Facebook, Twitter, instagram, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, Quora and make a list of all of them.
Next to each one, write down the number of followers
- Who is connecting with you on your social media platforms?
- What is working – what is not working?
- Is your target audience present on these channels?
- Do text or image posts create the best engagement?
- Am I providing a level of customer of service on every channel?
- Are all my profiles branded?
- How does your social media compare to your competitors accounts?
Answering these questions will give you a good overall analysis of where you currently stand within your social media marketing. You can then use this to better plan out your social media strategy as you now know what is working and what’s not. You now know where you main target audience is based and which channels will help you reach them quicker and more effectively.
Create engaging content
Work out what works for your audience in terms of content. Does their demographics determine what type of posts they would like to see?
In most cases, visuals catch the attention of the target audience. If they are presented with something that is eye-catching and immediately says ‘wow’ to them, they are more likely to engage or to share your content.
Depending on what social media platform you are using, see what works best by testing different mediums, the posts that create the most amount of feedback and engagement are the types that you need to build into your social media strategy. You could be the best copywriter in the world but if your posts are not grabbing the attention of the audience, they are not going to be effective. Test, test and test again to see what works. Create images that are powerful and have impact. Create images that speak directly to the customer – giving them solutions or advice that they want to hear. Text can be incorporated into the images and of course any text or wording alongside these images need to be just as impactful as the visuals. Give depth and knowledge, provide value in every post you create.
Learn from your competitors – find inspiration
Yes your business is unique and you need to come across as providing a unique service to every customer you come into contact with. But this doesn’t mean that you can’t learn from other experts in your industry. Establishing your audience and finding what they engage best with will give you grounding for your strategy. Finding inspiration from others can provide you with valuable insights that will help boost your brand awareness. Don’t forget that the key to social media is engagement – it is SOCIAL for a reason!
If you’d like help in putting together a social media strategy for your business or brand, we’d love to chat with you. Get in touch to find out more.
