Starting your business can prove to be difficult if the right plans have not been put into place. Making sure that your plans are direct, appropriate, and affordable are key to ensuring the best return on investment. Let’s review some practical tips for small business marketing to help you get things on the right track.
When trying to develop your business, taking into consideration other owner’s experiences will help you to better market your products and services. This will also help you avoid common mistakes made by new business owners and marketers. We recently sat down with business owners, and wanted to provide you with this valuable information.
In order to continue to move your company towards a path of success, let’s review some practical tips for small business marketing to help you get going.
Set Practical Goals
This may sound like common sense, but when put to the task, setting goals can be more challenging than one may think. When composing a marketing strategy or setting a business plan, you must construct practical goals for you to accomplish. When setting your goals, they need to meet the standards of being:
- Achievable
- Understandable
- Executable
Measure the scale of your company’s reach. Ask if your staff members are ready, willing, and able to accomplish the tasks that you’ve set before them. The best question to ask yourself is, “Do I have the right people in place to carry out this vision?” If you’re not surrounded by professionals that understand your vision, you’ve either hired the wrong people or have not made your vision clear to the team. Make sure to genuinely consider this question and ask your management team to provide some honest feedback.
Keep in mind that you may have achievable and understandable goals, but your goals may still not be executable. Having a vision that everyone understands is wonderful. However, if you don’t have the proper tools to carry it out, it will never come to fruition. Does your team have the right CRM to manage accounts? Do they have the marketing materials necessary to educate the customer? Do you have someone in place to cultivate relationships? What is the call to action for the customer?
These considerations are extremely important, as well as practical. Especially when beginning small business marketing and developing new customers. If you’re not sure if your team has the right tools to execute your goals, the answer is simple. You need to ask them.
Simon Sinek explains the Golden Circle in this famous Ted Talk.
How great leaders inspire action | Simon Sinek
The Power of Communication
Communication is the only tool that, if not provided on a regular basis, will stop your company from achieving any goal. When you’re working with a large team, or even with a small one, you should have a minimum of these communication types in place:
- Meetings. Don’t be the stereotypical company that has meetings just for the sake of having meetings. Communication within any meeting should be short, concise, and to the point. They should always end with a call to action for each participant, and also provide defined deliverables. Keep meetings to a maximum of 45 minutes in order to achieve the highest ROI on your time spent; while also keeping the attention of those in attendance. Don’t underestimate the power of huddles as well. A 15 minute daily or twice weekly touch base can take your team to the next level.
- Instant Messenger. Many companies overlook the power of instant messaging. Whether you optimize Skype for Business or Google Hangouts, allowing employees to utilize instant messenger is essential. This will cut down on time wasted from walking to and from desks and fraternizing. Instant messaging will allow employees to get the information they need, and even have virtual meetings, in a time frame that works for them. Instant messaging can also be easily monitored internally as well for quality assurance and to prevent e-communication misuse.
- Email. Communication through e-mail is the most practical way to communicate in today’s modern age of technology. Email may be considered a dated form of communication by some, but it is the most effective paper-free paper trail for tracking projects and sending files. Don’t forget about file sharing options as well like Dropbox and Jumpshare. These will help you transfer larger files, documents, and videos to your team without clogging up your server. Utilizing Google Drive is also practical, but as with any FTP site, you must always consider the sensitivity and security of your information.
All of these tips apply not only to marketing professionals, but any company focused on helping streamline the success of their business.
Implementing Budgets
The last thing to consider when applying practical tips for small business marketing, is to make sure that you stick to a practical budget. When setting your marketing budget, you will want to consider the tools to utilize when working on projects.
Software, Tools, & Design
You will need individuals to utilize any software product you have, however, don’t overthink your software and marketing tools. Most companies believe that the best way to go is with large, robust programs. In all actuality, you may be overlooking the benefits of what you currently have.
Microsoft Excel is not just a scalable spreadsheet document. It can be a simple, easy to use, project management tool when optimized correctly, as well as a basic CRM. Canva for Work is also a great, easy way to compile graphics and design templates for your projects. If your budget is tight, put the breaks on purchasing an expensive graphic design program and try Canva first. You can also add users to create a team of designers and communicate through the program. MailChimp, Hootsuite, and ConstantContact are also very simple, and mostly free tools email marketing tools that you can use as well.
Utilizing Advanced Software
Once you’ve outgrown the above tools, you may want to consider expanding your platforms into larger, more robust technologies. Adobe Photoshop is a more advanced graphic tool that can scale graphics for large projects. There may be additional costs to consider when optimizing Adobe Photoshop; such as additional hours for training and a higher residual usage charge. Hubspot is also another more expensive, but robust, tool to utilize for customer relationship management, content marketing, and also social media optimization.
We also recommend the use of Asana to help with project management and achieving team goals. Asana may be a cheaper solution than other project management tools, but it is extremely robust and efficient. It has the ability to scale from small to large sized projects. Either way, you will want to keep in mind the price tag associated with utilizing these tools. If it makes sense to use them with the amount of business you’re currently working with, then it would be best to upgrade.
Improve Your Small Business Marketing Today!
These great tips are just the start of where Elevare’s knowledge and industry experience can take your company. Why not give us a call and help you get things started with your business? We can provide the best plan of action to help you achieve your goals, even if you’re on a tight budget. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you make the most of your marketing budget! Fill out the form below and we will get back to you.
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