Marketing your business’s products and services isn’t as easy as it used to be. There seems to be an innumerable amount of ways to get your message out to existing and potential customers. There are still the old tried-and-true methods of direct mail and telemarketing from lead and sales lists, which remain relevant and continue to work, but what about your online presence? What else can you be doing to grow your business? What works?
The answer isn’t easy and it’s more complicated than ever. For tactics, email campaigns are a great way to build brand awareness, but not necessarily to get immediate action or a response to your offer. With prolific spam filters and highly tuned junk folders, it’s harder than ever to get your email through. This doesn’t mean, however, that email campaigns shouldn’t be part of your acquisition or branding strategy. It simply means you need to be smarter about how you create your email and how your deliver it. More importantly, it’s how often you send it. A “one and done” strategy will only result in disappointment. Email campaigns are about frequency and best left up to the professionals to handle at least the deployment of your campaign.
Online optimization and web placement is vital to being found on the Internet and also in cultivating your personal connection with viewers. Whether they’re existing customers or brand new visitors, they’re looking for something specific and you’re website must have it or they’ll be gone. Time and time again studies show and experts tout the importance of good, quality content marketing. This isn’t selling or pushing your products or services, but it’s providing valuable and meaningful information your viewer is eagerly searching for. If they find significant content on your site or being provided by you, the chances of converting those viewers into customers notably increase.
Social media is another resource beneficial to businesses both large and small. Anyone wanting to grow their exposure and customer base should actively participate in Facebook, LinkedIn and/or Twitter. Naturally there are other social sites that can benefit your organization, too, but these are the three main and most popular social media services.
Whether you’re looking to engage your current customers or attract new ones, there’s a lot more to the marketing pie than there used to be. Keep doing the traditional methods that work for you, but also explore other options, as well, to either supplement your current efforts or to take your marketing in a whole new direction.