No matter the size or scope of your business, it’s imperative to focus on consistent growth. Without regularly improving your marketing operations to help your brand expand, you’ll quickly become stagnant and won’t experience the success needed to survive.
Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to bolster your current marketing strategy. By focusing on long-term success and growth, you’ll set your brand up for a better, brighter future that starts today.
With that in mind, let’s cover a few effective ways you can improve your existing marketing operations to grow your audience and boost your brand recognition.
1. Focus on Creative Content
Marketing experts love to say “content is king,” and there’s a lot of truth to that statement. Content marketing remains as relevant as ever. But, the type of content you present to your audience might need to be tweaked.
The days of solely focusing on keywords are over. While it’s still important to include them in your content, it shouldn’t be done at the expense of the “human” quality of your business. If you don’t currently have a content marketing strategy in place, use the following steps to get started:
- Identify your content categories.
- Establish formats and decide on your platforms.
- Create a visual identity.
- Gather assets.
- Create a content calendar.
To make your content efforts more effective, consider developing buyer personas to model it around. These are stereotypes of your target audience, and you can use them to create more effective, engaging ads, web content, and more. Again, it speaks to the human-like quality of your business and can foster stronger relationships with your customers.
2. Be Social Media Savvy
It should come as no surprise that social media is a necessity for your business. You likely already have some type of social media presence, but is it enough to foster growth and keep your audience engaged?
Social media should be just that — social. If you’re not using it to humanize your brand and connect with your audience, you could be missing out on essential growth. If you’re struggling to find better ways to boost your social media communication efforts, consider strategies like:
- Hosting Q&A sessions
- Hosting livestream events
- Showing behind-the-scenes photos
- Holding contests
It’s also important to follow current trends, like short-form video content and podcasting. The more in tune you are with what’s happening in the social media world, the easier it will be for your audience to stay engaged and feel like they can connect with you.
3. Get Personal With Email Marketing
Research has shown that email delivers a strong ROI. One study found that for every dollar you spend on email marketing, you’ll receive an average return of $40.
Not only is email marketing a great way to boost your bottom line, but it offers a fantastic opportunity to better connect with your audience through segmentation and personalization. You can use targeted marketing to send specific emails to people, based on what they might be interested in. That creates a more invested relationship and those customers are more likely to open your emails in the future.
You can also focus on creating viral emails with a few key tips, including:
- Optimizing your subject line
- Including images or video
- Avoiding attachments
- Offering a reward
- Including a CTA
In general, email seems more personal than social media — but only if it’s done correctly. The last thing anyone wants is more spam in their inbox. Focus on personalization and worthwhile content that people will be happy to receive, and you’ll start to see your subscriber rate (and ROI) go up.
4. Do Your Research
It’s not enough to rest on your idea of who your target audience is today. Instead, make sure you’re constantly collecting as much data as possible to determine how that audience might be shifting and changing. Doing so will allow you to make necessary changes, too, and adapt your brand to fit the needs of your customers.
You can collect data through things like customer reviews, testimonials, and surveys. You can also use website data to determine which pages/products are getting the most traction.
When you collect data from multiple avenues and use it to extract information from your customers, you’ll have a clearer picture of who they are and what they want, allowing you to better promote specific products or services. That can be extremely beneficial when you plan on launching new products in the future and you need to know what works and what doesn’t.
5. Stay on Brand
One of the best things you can do to grow your business is to remain true to your brand. Establishing a brand identity early on is important, but it’s never too late to rebrand or to find your real identity even after you’ve become an established business. A brand identity gives you a voice, shows your audience your values, and personifies your business.
Once you’ve established that identity, use it to move your business forward and connect with your audience online and in person, if you run a local establishment. Make sure every employee in your company understands your brand’s values and facilitates them through everything from marketing to customer service.
Every business’ goal is growth. Your marketing operations can have a lot to do with how quickly you grow, and how successful you are in the future. Keep these suggestions in mind to improve those operations and to get to know your target audience while doing it.
By Indiana Lee, BOSS contributor
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