Scaling a business is hard and takes considerable effort. Marketing, especially for small businesses can be tricky because the budget is always tight, and time is always limited. The potential market for local businesses is usually smaller, competition from larger competitors is very obvious, and online commerce very fierce.
However, all this does not mean that running a small business is impossible. With little innovation, creative thinking, and unique marketing ideas, your business can easily come up top. Here are 11 unique marketing ideas that will help scale your business to new heights.
1. Know Your Audience
There is no one-size-fits-all marketing strategy that everyone can follow and achieve great results. Your business is different from any other and you have a specific target audience.
Think about their demographics, where they live, their age group, the online services they are likely to use, and how they search for products or services. This information will help you devise a strong marketing strategy that will bear fruit.
2. User Experience Is Very Important – Put It First
One of the best local business marketing ideas you should implement is putting user experience first. Give high priority to the overall look of your website, the design, usability, and navigation. Hire marketing experts, such as IntoClicks to help because you don’t want to miss this up.
They will consider all the crucial aspects of a website, including user interface, content strategy, mobile responsiveness, user experience, and structure as part of the design.
3. Use Google My Business
Using Google My Business is a phenomenal marketing strategy that every small business should take advantage of. Google My Business combines all Google marketing tools, including Google +, Google Insights, Google Reviews, Google Analytics, and Google Maps on one platform. It is a credible way of ensuring that your target audience notices you.
This is especially powerful for local businesses targeting local markets because the business listings get a promotion. The listing usually appears at the top of the page before the search results and if you can get your business in the top 3, your web traffic will hike. This alone can boost your business exceptionally.
4. Combine That With Google Adwords
Google Adwords is not a new strategy, but it has been proven to work time and time again. This is a competitive strategy, and even though it’s not cheap, if done right it could reap massive benefits for your business. If your marketing team can achieve perfect on-page SEO, Google Adwords will deliver the results that will drive traffic to your site.
Set a proper budget to avoid over or underspending. One good thing about the process is that it’s highly flexible and adjustable so you can always go back. The next thing you need is a proper set of keywords all of which include exact match, phrase match, broad match modified, and broad match type keywords.
Strong keywords will have a huge impact on your click rate, conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI).
5. Create Facebook Ads
Social medial is a strong marketing tool and Facebook advertising is a part of it. This is among the most unique marketing ideas and the best part is that it’s cost-effective for local businesses.
The next best thing about it is that you can reach any target audience based on their age, sex, online behavior, and location. The Facebook Ad Manager will guide you through the process and run tests for you, making it super easy.
Some of the benefits of Facebook advertising is apart from the fact that it is one of the cheapest forms of advertising, it’s also the most targeted and one of the fastest.
Facebook advertising usually drives immediate results and it will increase your brand awareness by a mile. Beyond that, it will increase your website traffic, revenue, leads, and sales.
6. Talking of Social Media
Most of your consumers use various social media platforms and your small business needs to be where they are. This is the one place you need to put total devotion because growing your social media audience is highly beneficial for your business. Marketing professionals spend both timer and money just to establish and maintain a strong social media presence, and for good reasons.
Once you create an account on different platforms, ensure that your accounts are active by posting daily. If for instance a consumer bumps into your page and the most recent post was from a few weeks ago, they’ll certainly not have an interest.
Customers don’t follow brands that don’t post quality content leave alone those who rarely post anything. As long as you know your marketing goals, you should not run out of content.
Your customers need a reason to follow you and some of these reasons may include exclusive promotions, curiosity about products or services, entertaining content, incentives, or their friends and family follow you as well. Posting daily and spamming your consumers are two different things so go slow on the promotional content.
The trick here is forming relationships with the users, implementing automation tools, encouraging user-generated content, and broadcasting lives video streams.
7. Advertise in Print Media
You may not know this but print media like newspapers and magazines still have a huge readership. Reputed newspapers reach a vast number of people from different backgrounds. As a matter of fact, almost all audiences read newspapers, which means that your message will reach a wider market.
Plenty of consumers make purchase decisions based on advertisements in newspapers, deeming those newspapers trustworthy sources of information. Use brochures, business cards, and guides to attract attention and capture new customers.
Combining print media with online marketing will enhance your chances of success.
8. Use Email Marketing
Most customers need some convincing before making purchases and email marketing is a great avenue for convincing your customers. The best way to amass a great number of emails is by offering your customers an intensive, like a free gift, coupon, service trial, or something similar.
Once they subscribe to your email, you can add them to your list. One of the best things about this marketing strategy is that you can automate the process and waste zero time. Email marketing is one of the best ways to build business credibility, generate calls, and improve communications.
9. Direct Mail Marketing
Direct mail may be conventional, but people are starting to reduce their on-screen time and are looking to be engaged in a different way. Direct mail will be one of those intriguing and unique marketing ideas.
Make the envelope design eye-catching, then make it appear bulky so consumers are curious to open it. Of course, the content inside should be compelling and well worth their time.
You’d be surprised at the fact that most people love to receive mail. There is just something about tangible things that you can hold with your hands. They feel as if they are more genuine than online products. Direct mail is highly targeted, highly measurable, highly flexible and individualized.
This is a cost-effective marketing strategy that is bound to build you trust and credibility, two important aspects of a successful business. Besides, if you have a target audience that is not internet savvy, like senior citizens direct mail will be highly appreciated and you’ll reach a wider market.
10. Offer Your Employees Incentives
Your employees are your biggest business asset and should be considered so. These people know a lot about your business and they come in contact with customers. It’s very easy for them to communicate with customers and know what they need from the business.
Offer them incentives in the form of rewards, money, or vouchers once they refer or bring in a new customer to the business.
One of the biggest mistakes most small businesses make when it comes to employee incentives is thinking they must be costly. Incentives can be given on a budget.
Make them simple and affordable in a way that you can afford to do them continuously. Think beyond bonuses and commissions and go with things like movie tickets and discounts on products.
11. Consider Using Webinars
Webinars are online seminars conducted in forms of discussions, demonstrations or presentations and they are a great strategy to attract new customers. You can use these unique marketing ideas to generate a larger email list because the people joining have to leave their email addresses.
Webinars are more engaging compared to video marketing due to their live session interaction. When you discuss directly with your consumers and answer their questions, they feel that you care about them. This will build strong relationships and loyal customers.
Use Unique Marketing Ideas to Grow Your Business
These are some of the most unique marketing ideas local businesses can use to their advantage. Small businesses have a lot going on, but marketing is the most important aspect of operations. Ensure you have professionals working on these strategies if you want to maximize on each one.
Implementing some strategies may be harder than others, but all of them are detrimental to the growth of your business, and in the long run, they will be well worth it. Regardless of the kind of business you have, if you market it right, it’s bound to thrive.
Be sure to keep browsing our page for more digital marketing ideas and SEO strategies.