The old adage for any small business is location, location, location. However, being in the right place will not make your business a success if potential customers do not know about you.
That is where the next crucial tool for small businesses comes into play: Marketing.
Aiken SCORE can help, and ABD is sharing the secrets of success.
SCORE, the volunteer-driven organization with a team in Aiken, offered a free online seminar to show the must-do steps to successfully market a small business. It’s part of the non-profit’s ongoing mentoring, workshops, training, and resources.
Led by Ivana Taylor of DIY Marketing (www.diymarketers.com), the webinar laid out the top three marketing strategies.
Taylor said she hears every day from small businesses that are working hard, feeling overwhelmed, yet seeing little results from their marketing efforts.
“Why is marketing so hard? Well, it feels hard because you’ve just kind of been thrown into the deep end,” she said. “Without a strategy, without anything, you’re trying to build traction, but in the middle of all of this is just nothing but noise and trends. I’m going to tell you that the reason it’s hard is not necessarily because you’re doing it wrong. It’s because you have been doing it backwards.”
Taylor said one of the secrets to successful marketing is to think of marketing as choices, first, followed then by actions. Once choices are made, then action strategies can be developed.
Taylor said the best marketing strategies boil down to three things: Advertising, the Power of Attraction; Content, the Power of Empathy; and Direct, the Power of Persuasion.
She said advertising works best for established businesses. It can utilize tactics including Google PPC (Pay Per Click), ads in social media, and local sponsorships. Buying advertising means speed to gain attention with fast results.
Taylor said content, or the power of empathy, targets a smaller, much more specialized type of business. It is ideal for experts, educators, consultants, and coaches. Key to its success is consistently creating content.
“Whether I’m feeling up or down, I have to create content posts. Have to go out on LinkedIn, and I have to create videos. I need to do a webinar,” she explained. “Typical content, your blogging, your social media, your videos, webinars, podcasts, all the tactics are going to be educational in nature, and they’re going to help people choose which one is best for you. You can do this with anyone, but it has to be inside of you to want to help people choose.”
Taylor said this approach takes more time, but it is ideal for businesses that do not have a great deal of money to invest.
The final strategy, the power of persuasion, is ideal for local businesses based on relationships and high levels of trust.
“It’s ideal for those people who have a specific audience with a specific problem, and you have a specific solution,” she said. “The core tactics are going to be involved with relationship building. You’re going to be networking, you’re going to be building referrals, you’re going to be doing outreach, partnerships, those types of things. So, a direct marketing platform is basically saying, ‘If you are like this and you’re having this problem, here is a solution.’”
Taylor said each of the three strategies has a core type of business that will find it most useful. However, she encouraged business owners to explore aspects of all three to build a successful marketing strategy.
“When you choose your marketing strategy, you will end up doing less marketing and making more money,” she advised.
Learn more about SCORE’s Aiken group at www.score.org/greateraiken
