As a business owner, it’s very common to fall into the trap of seeing marketing as an expense rather than an investment. Maybe you’ve run a few ads, hired a marketing agency, or tried your hand at Google’s AdWords services only to find yourself spending more than you’ve made. You certainly wouldn’t be alone. Fortunately, we’ve got a few ideas that will help you make the most of your investment.
1. Engineering Client Experience
Customer Retention
Happy customers are repeat customers. When the cost of acquiring a new customer is 5X as much as retaining an existing one, it’s an obvious choice. Create a better experience, and your business will grow.
Improved Reviews
Traditionally, reputation has been the cornerstone of small business. In the modern era, there’s a new dimension to this. Nearly 75% of consumers read reviews before engaging a business. Better reviews mean more business.
More Referrals
Reputation and referrals have always gone hand in hand. Think about the products and services you have referred to your friends and family. Chances are, you didn’t see it as a favor to the business. It was a favor to the people close to you, because you wanted them to have the same positive experience you did.
2. Creating an Exciting Value Proposition
Emotionally Involve Customers
Emotion is one of the most powerful influences in the purchasing process. In an age where competing on price is nearly impossible, creating an emotional connection with your customers is essential.
Provide What Your Clients Really Want
Often our clients will misunderstand what it is that they want and pass that misunderstanding on to us. However, when your client gets excited about your value proposition, you know that you are servicing their needs.
Resonate with Your Target Audience
An exciting value proposition will garner the attention of people that occupy your desired demographic. The emotional appeal in your USP (unique selling point) should be crafted in a way that catches the attention of would-be customers.
3. Unifying Your Message
Clarity
Unifying your message is about clarity. The hallmark of a consistent brand is simple. When people are asked what you do well, is the answer usually the same? This clarity is paramount in conveying a lasting impression. There is no room for confusion on what value your business provides.
Effective Communication
Your marketing system is the culmination of all of your communication with the public. You can only say so much before your prospects stop listening. Making the most of this communication means that you can increase the return on your marketing efforts.
Managing Expectations
Pre-framing your clients before you begin working with them is crucial in setting expectations. Setting the right expectations is just as important. If you’re truly delivering value to your clients, you don’t need to oversell it. Let them know what to expect by utilizing a unified message.
4. Start Retargeting Your Customers
Decide Which Pages to Track
Tracking visitors that have made it further through your sales funnel will provide more precise information than those at the top of the funnel.
Determine Special Offer
Offers that are specific to the actions of those who have already visited your page will provide a better conversion rate. The feeling of having found a special deal can be enough to tip the scales to convert your visitors.
How Long Should You Run Ads?
Depending on your industry, the average buy cycle will influence how long you want to show your ads for.
Targeting Post Conversion Customers
Visitors that have converted in a non-monetary way can be retargeted to encourage a monetary conversion.
5. Improving Client’s Lifetime Value
The lifetime value of a customer, or customer lifetime value (CLV), represents the total amount of money a single customer is expected to spend in your business, or on your products, during their lifetime minus the cost of acquiring that customer. It’s an important metric as it costs less to keep existing customers than it does to acquire new ones, so increasing the value of your existing customers is a great way to drive growth.
How to Improve Lifetime Value
If you want your business to acquire and retain highly valuable customers, then it’s essential that your team learns what customer lifetime value is and how to calculate it. By knowing this statistic it can help you make decisions about how much money to invest in acquiring new customers and retaining existing ones.
What it Means for Your Marketing
Your marketing budget packs a bigger punch. If every customer is worth twice what it was before, now your budget is twice as effective. It’s also important to measure the current value of your customers, so you can determine if a campaign is effective.
6. Reduce Client Aqcuisition Costs
What is Client Acquisition Cost?
It’s the money you invest in attracting a new customer, including advertising, marketing, special offers and so on.
How to Improve CAC
- Close the loop with unhappy customers
- Address negative reviews and fix issues if possible
- Negative review makes it harder to get new client which increases the cost of acquisition
- Address negative reviews and fix issues if possible
- Referral system
- Giving your clients helps build loyalty as well as lower cost of customer acquisition
- Increase Conversion Rate
- Provide solutions for potential customers pain points
- Realize what strategy works for your company
- What works for one company may not be the solution for you, and can increase your COA
- Utilizing Marketing Automation
- B2C marketers who take advantage of automation including everything from cart abandonment programs to birthday emails have seen conversion rates as high as 50%
7. Networking
Small business networking is an often overlooked marketing solution. The key to success with this approach is quickly delivering your value proposition in an exciting way. Websites like Meetup are a great way to find networking events near you.
Zero Cost Exposure
A great source of exposure for small businesses is attending local networking events. Houston has plenty of free networking communities to join. It’s a great use of time at any stage in your business, but it can be especially useful as a low-cost startup.
Community Influence
Your local community is the cornerstone of any good small business launch. Consumers feel a deep connection with the businesses in their community, and the “buy local” movement is at an all time high. Take advantage of this to kick start your marketing efforts.
Small Business Networking Adds a Personal Touch
In a market where most of your clients are reached behind a computer screen, a face to face meeting is very personal. Leverage your personality to create real connections with people who influence your industry. Often, people will find a way to do business with you solely because they enjoyed socializing and getting to know you.
Learn About Your Target Audience
You will learn more sitting in the living room of your customer than you can ever learn by pouring over metrics. Often the problems you solve for your ideal customer isn’t a perfect match with what they ask for. A networking event can give you a chance to read between the lines.
8. PPC Advertisement
Product ads for small business create a direct path between your product and your customers. It requires very little time investment and, when done right, doesn’t have to be a monetary risk.
Test, Then Scale
Finding an effective marketing outlet can be a costly game of trial and error. Luckily, online product advertising can be tested at minimal cost. Once you’ve mastered your ad, you can then bring it to scale.
Easy to Track Metrics
With a single step sales cycle, your KPIs become very clear. ROI, cost of acquisition, and the lifetime value of your customers are great metrics provided by direct to product ads.
High Value Conversions
Each conversion translates directly into sales. This allows more room in your marketing budget as well as increasing the value of your ad spend.
Impulse Purchases
Impulse purchases are spur of the moment decisions that don’t require much investment on the part of the consumer. Direct to product ads are a great solution for products of this nature. Much like the way gum, candy and magazines are placed near checkout at the grocery store, these ads can facilitate an impulse purchase while your customers are scrolling through social media or surfing the web.
In Demand Services
Certain services are already in the back of your client’s mind. Knowing that the lawn needs to be mowed or the pipes need fixing means that your clients have been subconsciously on the look out for. Direct advertising can provide the convenient solution they need.
9. Creating a Sales Funnel
A small business sales funnel is the marketing technique of creating a series of engagements to convert your prospects. It graduates from open-ended and attention grabbing to a very specific communication of value. This process of nurturing your leads involves multiple touch points.
Casting a Wide Net
A well crafted Sales Funnel will provide the ideal information at each stage of the sales cycle. Whether your customer is just beginning to research your product or service or ready to pull the trigger, your sales funnel has the answer. Matching each customer with the right message is crucial.
A Narrative Relationship
Like any meaningful relationship, the one between you and your client should develop over time. An important aspect of courtship is a direct relationship between time and emotional investment. A multi-step sales funnel will ease your clients into a sincere connection.
More Touch Points
Every interaction between your business and its customers defines your brand. Utilizing a sales funnel provides you more opportunities to influence the way you’re perceived.
Great for High Dollar Sales
Unlike impulse purchases, expensive or non-essential sales require grooming over time. There is a reason you don’t often see advertisements outright selling a specific car model. Trust building is done not all at once, but in a succession of small engagements.
10. Improving Your Brand
Branding for Small Business is one of the most important, and unfortunately most neglected, aspects of launching a business. It guides your decisions moving forward, and creates the framework for progress. It’s more than a set of rules that dictate your company’s visuals. Branding is the way that a business is perceived in every touch point between itself and its clients. When each interaction with a possible client is thoughtfully tailored to convey the same message, they will walk away with an understanding of your business’ identity and positioning in the marketplace.
A Professional Image
Competing with larger businesses that have more resources can be daunting. The easiest way to level the playing field is to look the part. A strong, polished presentation can help your brand earn immediate trust.
Better Leverage Exposure
A stronger brand will increase the effectiveness of all of the marketing efforts you’re already engaged in. No matter what stage your company is in, you are always working to get your name out. Improving your brand will better leverage this exposure.
Attracting Your Target Audience
A well developed brand works as a filter for your prospective clients. It turns away the wrong matches while catching the interest of the rest. Establishing a “customer avatar” calls to your attention what makes a perfectly ideal customer and everything about their interests, patterns, and lifestyle. It can tell you where to market, what techniques to use, and how to create a buying atmosphere that’s suitable for your customers.
