Marketing for a small business can be daunting, and keeping up with the latest trends and strategies is crucial to online marketing success. However, finding the time to research and stay on top of the latest developments can take time away from running the business. We understand that time is valuable when running a business, so we have gathered three of the latest and greatest strategies that have helped businesses market to wider audiences with better conversion rates.
First, a focus on Chatbots has recently captured the attention of operations of all sizes. From major corporations to family-run businesses, chatbots have revolutionized how customers can interact with websites and find the product or service that best fits their needs. LinkedIn Outreach Campaigns are a more individualized marketing technique for a more targeted approach. Through personal introductions and expanding the business’s network, connections can be made, contact information can be collected, and direct traffic can even be driven to a specific product or website. Finally, Content Marketing cannot be overlooked in its value to a business. Whether running a blog relevant to the business or offering content tailored to a target audience, Content Marketing can bolster credibility and keep potential clients engaged.
So, whether your company needs to jumpstart its marketing strategy or simply searching for the next avenue to build interest in your small business, dive into these strategies to drive traffic to your website and direct it once your target audience has been reached.
Focus On Chatbots
Automation is one of the most significant improvements a business can make to any of its internal operations. Automation boosts efficiency and saves potential customers time and effort, making them more likely to continue engaging with the website.
Since chatbots can be tailored to fit any small business, they make the ideal solution for creating a sales funnel that can efficiently point those interested on where to look for the specific information and products they seek on your website. From answering questions to giving tailored advice or recommendations, Chatbots are a perfectly accessible tool for business owners looking to take one aspect of online marketing off their plate.
According to chatbot.com, one of the industry leaders in automated conversational AI tools for marketing, Chatbots can be “very efficient tools, and when deployed responsibly, they can become you and your customer’s best friends.” By focusing on setting up an efficient and effective Chatbot on your business’s site, driving traffic to critical services and products has never been easier. After providing the information and conditioning the bot needs to operate in a manner aligned with your brand’s voice and messaging, the rest is a breeze. Additionally, Chatbots offer more than simply interacting with customers and directing them to various parts of your website. They are also excellent tools for tracking analytics, customer behavior and needs, and any other information in your databank that may be useful to your customers or future marketing strategies.
So, whether you want to supercharge marketing productivity or add an artificial intelligence flair to your website, Chatbot Marketing can’t be ignored.
LinkedIn Outreach Campaigns
LinkedIn has seen explosive growth in recent years, transforming from a platform almost exclusively for professionals used to network into a social media platform all its own. Now, as more and more folks find themselves creating accounts and forming connections to grow their network, an untapped source of leads and connectivity has been unleashed.
Since LinkedIn offers credentialed profiles and ample opportunities to brand yourself and your business, it has become a hotbed of curated audiences who are generally networking with like-minded individuals. To take advantage of this, the platform has launched LinkedIn Outreach Campaigns.
These marketing campaigns allow Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Client (B2C) interaction that can help generate curated leads that may be hard to come by elsewhere. An example of one of these advantages that LinkedIn offers is the multitude of filters the platform provides when looking to make connections or build your Ideal Customer Persona.
These filters allow you to tailor connection requests to those LinkedIn users who fit your specific needs and may constitute a portion of your target audience. From LinkedIn:
One of the tools that can be so effective for businesses of all kinds is the “Ideal Customer Persona,” which can be set up to reflect the qualities of an ideal customer for your niche. Whether it be craft goods or curated services that your small business offers, filling in this persona will help the LinkedIn algorithm recognize and gather profiles that best fit your marketing goals.
This level of tailoring and outreach allows your business to precisely curate accounts that will most likely fall into your target audience and demographic. Then, reaching out and forming connections with these accounts is a breeze. Another perk of these connections is that often, after you have connected with an account, their contact information will be accessible, allowing you to view their email and potentially add it to future mailing lists or email blasts. However, there are a few things to keep in mind if you want to test the water of LinkedIn Outreach Campaigns for yourself.
Of primary concern, LinkedIn is notoriously strict about user behavior and how business profiles can interact with potential clients. If you attempt to connect with too many accounts per day or increase this number too quickly, LinkedIn will likely flag your profile for unusual activity and ban it. To remedy this, start slow and message only a few accounts per day, increasing the number as your account transitions into the “warm account” classification. While you wait for your acceptable limit to grow, direct messages are a great way to keep engaging with potential customers or clients without being flagged by the system.
Content Marketing
Content Marketing is an established and incredibly effective marketing strategy that almost any small business can implement effectively. The core concept behind Content Marketing is presenting relevant information or reading material that your clients can find value in on your website. On many sites, content marketing will show up as a “Blogs” or “News” section that is routinely posted to and updated.
While this strategy may not directly lead to sales or conversions, it is a massively impactful driver of traffic to a website. By finding topics or questions that folks in your target demographic may be interested in, topics for blog posts or news updates can be found. Then, with the proper search engine optimization (SEO) writing strategies and effective use of meta titles, descriptions, and tags, these pieces of content can be found in the top ranks of Google searches, driving traffic to your website.
Content marketing allows for another avenue in which your small business’s site can rank on Google. It also increases the time potential clients or customers spend on your website and boosts your credibility with them.
Content Marketing is widely used at all levels of business and has proven successful in almost every field. As mentioned in this article from The Content Marketing Institute,
“Our annual research shows the vast majority of marketers are using content marketing. In fact, it is used by many prominent organizations in the world, including P&G, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, and John Deere. It’s also developed and executed by small businesses and one-person shops around the globe. Why? Because it works.”
One of the best ways to boost traffic and bolster relationships with potential customers or clients is the get them to view your small business as multi-faceted. For example, rather than just a marketplace or a storefront for your services or wares, become a trusted source for industry news and updates or informational articles.
Content marketing can also bridge the gap into other areas of marketing as well. Take, for instance, an email campaign or a routine mailing list. Rather than including information most consumers are likely to scroll past or immediately trash, consider including relevant and pertinent content to your target demographic. This way, instead of opening an email and immediately disregarding it, they will spend more time with your material and may even click over to your website to learn more.
What To Do Now
Whether you utilize one or all of the strategies outlined above, there are key takeaways to keep in mind to enhance your small business’s marketing efforts. First, automation and creating a fantastic resource for your clientele by focusing on Chatbot Marketing is invaluable and can boost efficiency and your sales funnel immensely. LinkedIn also offers great automated tools that can help tailor your marketing efforts, and their campaigns can be effective in building a network and even bolstering your mailing list. Finally, by implementing content marketing, you can become a trusted source of information for your target demographic and keep them engaged for longer, whether on your website or in an email marketing campaign. Content marketing can even be implemented into LinkedIn Outreach Campaigns.
Regardless of your small business’s current strategy or marketing tactics, take advantage of these excellent digital marketing trends and take your efforts to the next level.
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