Luke Luby
Marketing is one of those mandatory business excercises that very few people can do well; or, at least, very few people know how to market your start up. Many SMEs or start ups either fail to grasp how important marketing your business is, or they just don’t know where to start.
But what can a start up do in order to properly market their business? Well, there are a few things that’ll definitely help.
How To Market Your Business
There are a few essential things you need to do in order to market your business effectively and bring in those much needed sales. There are a few obvious ones, so we’ll list them off quickly before moving on to some of the bigger ones. The obvious marketing tips include:
- Have A Professional Website: A website is one of the first things that many prospective customers of clients will look for. If you don’t have one, or if it’s a badly developed site, then it’ll reflect poorly on your business.
- SEO: Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the main driver of new traffic to your website when you first start your business. Because of that, it’s essential that when you’re creating a website, that you make sure it’s optimised for the web. After all, there’s no point in having a website if nobody is going to see it.
- Have A Social Media Presence: It’s one thing to have a Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account for your business, but you need to be active on these sites in order to properly create awareness for your products or services.
- Networking: Face-to-face networking is one of the best and easiest ways to help develop your sales pipeline, but it also helps with your marketing. If you leave a good impression on a group of people, then they’ll remember you when the need arises for your products or services.
Now, onto the most essential marketing tips for your start up.
Blogging
I already mentioned that you sbould have a professional website. However, in this day and age, it’s not enough to just have a professional website. Blogging about topics related to your products or services will help get your brand name out there and develop your authority on the subject.
It’ll also help generate leads; according to one report by HubSpot, regular blogging will help increase your leads by up to 126%. With that kind of statistic, blogging is almost a necessity.
Sponsor An Event
Every start up needs to start somewhere, and the best way to do that is to start locally. In order to develop your brand name in your local area, as well as to kickstart your marketing strategy, consider sponsoring an event where your name will be put in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of people who may have an interest in your products or services.
Consult local directories, such as your local chamber of commerce, to see what kind of events that are coming up that you might be able to sponsor. This also ties in nicely with networking, so you’ll be able to kill two birds with one stone and develop a number of leads through the one event.
Search Advertising
There are billions of searches made across the likes of Google and Bing made on a daily basis, and your business could be in front of them. While SEO will get you a certain amount, you won’t be able to cover everything. With that in mind, you might want to consider paying for search advertising.
Going this route means that your business will be placed above certain search results, meaning that you can develop and nurture more leads.
What are your essential tips for marketing your business? Let me know!
