Since the pandemic swiftly arrived, it did a well job taking a hit to all small businesses. There have been massive shifts in the way customers consume and how business is done. As a business owner, the way you market your business is key.
So, how are you going to get your business running to get and retain new customers in 2021?
1. Invest in your website and online strategy
The pandemic shifted all eyes of consumers to go towards the digital world, meaning your website is the hub of your business. If you don't have a website, now is the time to do so. Remember, first impressions are very important so having a professional, easy-to-navigate, and fast website is a must. If your business is a local coffee shop, for example, you can make your business ecommerce where you can easily showcase your coffee and other products online, like we did for Cafe Tero.
If you already have a website, there are a few online strategies you can apply to drive more traffic there:
Create a blog. Your blog can serve as a place where people can learn more about your business and the industry overall. For example, for Rancho Pecana the blog mainly consists of recipes that have pecans as one of their ingredients so when people search on Google for pecan recipes they can easily access them from the website and while at it, order fresh pecans to arrive right at their doorstep. Which means, we drove traffic to the website by people who are very likely in making a purchase.
Get customer reviews. If you happen to offer a product or service people are always keen to knowing the past experience of your customers. Reviews can help people understand your business by seeing customers opinions and create trust.
Easy to navigate. You want every landing page to be very accessible, informative and necessary - don't oversaturate your website with too much information. Also, have every landing page lead to another, the key here is you want visitors to spend the most time possible on your website so they don't go back to the search engine and find information they were looking for elsewhere.
2. Get active on social media
Screen time on social media has never been higher since people are spending more time at home and using these social platforms to interact with friends, family, and businesses. Social media isn't going anywhere and will only continue to grow, whether it is in a new platform like TikTok or ones that are slowly dying out like Snapchat, people will migrate from one to another.
If your business still doesn't have any social platforms, don't overwhelm yourself by opening an account on each social platform. Instead, think where your target customer is hanging out whether that is Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest, or TikTok. Once you've found your ideal platform(s) you need to start creating content.
3. Content Marketing
If your goal is to not only land new customers or fans, but also retain them, then you need a very good content strategy. High quality content surrounds these four points:
Informative
Entertaining
Educative
Inspirational
Ask yourself these for questions to find out what type of content you want to be sharing online:
What we cover. In your niche, maybe you produce the best research, or the best how-to information, or the best investigative journalism.
How we cover it. This is channel specific.
Why we cover it. This is your higher purpose. To be a truly effective content marketer, you have to be creating and distributing content for the betterment of your reader-customer
Whom we cover it for. Are there groups of people that are not getting the information they need to do their jobs better or live their lives to the fullest extent?
Make the best out of 2021 and get growing by getting ahead digitally.