You know your business does great things. You know you need marketing to tell others about those great things. But where the heck do you start?!
Let us just start by saying, we feel you.
Marketing is complex, to say the least. It encompasses so many different disciplines, strategies, and tactics and therefore, can tend to feel overwhelming to non-experts. After all, branding, promotions, blogs, advertising, social media all fall under the umbrella of marketing.
Here at Atromitos, when we’re faced with a problem that feels simply insurmountable, the very first thing we do is try to break that large problem into its smallest parts.
With that in mind, and as we approach the new year and are in the midst of developing our very own marketing plan for the upcoming year, we thought our readers might find it helpful to learn (or be reminded of) those smallest parts of marketing for small businesses.
WHAT IS MARKETING?
Let’s start with the obvious: what is marketing anyway? Like we said before, it’s kind of a complicated question. But in simplest terms, marketing is the act of driving profitable customer action. It spans the full scope of strategies and tactics organizations use to position products and services in the marketplace, and motivate target audiences to take a certain action.
The purpose of marketing is ultimately to raise awareness of your brand in the marketplace and to build a pipeline of qualified business leads. With a small business in particular, getting the word out can be challenging due to limited resources like time and money. But we’re here to tell you that a firm understanding of the basics, you can get started building a marketing plan for your business that will set you up for success.
INBOUND VS. OUTBOUND MARKETING
When delving into the world of marketing, two terms you’re likely to hear are inbound marketing and outbound marketing.
HubSpot aptly describes the difference between the two terms saying, “Think of outbound marketing as ‘push’ marketing and inbound marketing as ‘pull.’” Instead of “pushing” your service/products onto your audience with ads or sales tactics via outbound marketing, inbound marketing allows you to “pull” customers in via valuable content that helps them accomplish their goals.
For this reason, it is generally accepted that as a small business with limited resources and time, a majority (about 90%) of your efforts should go towards inbound marketing.
Examples of inbound marketing include:
- Blogging
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Social media
- Facebook Ads
- Branding
- Referrals
While examples of outbound marketing include:
- TV commercial
- Radio ads
- Print advertisements (newspaper ads, magazine ads, flyers, brochures, catalogs, etc.)
- Tradeshows
- Outbound sales calls (AKA “cold calls”)
WHERE TO START
You can probably guess what we’re going to say, but if not: Start with a plan, of course! By answering a few basic questions, you can build a marketing plan to take your small business to the next level. These questions include:
- What is your company’s unique selling proposition (the one thing that makes your business better than the competition)?
- What are your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (aka a S.W.O.T. analysis)?
- Who are you trying to reach (your target audience) and what do you want them to do? How will you encourage them to take that action?
- What are your high-level (think 30,000-foot level) goals for your business?
- How will you measure marketing’s impact on influencing that action?
Once you’ve answered these initial questions, you can shift to thinking through the specific tactics and content you’ll use, keeping in mind the four stages of the buying journey which are:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
- Loyalty
And there are different types of marketing that are relevant to different points in the journey. The examples below are from an excellent article from Constant-Content.com detailing the recommended types of content to be considered for each stage of the buyer’s journey.
Awareness Stage
- eBooks
- eGuides
- White Papers
- Editorial Content
- Reports
- Blog Posts
Consideration Stage
- Webinars/Webcasts
- Podcasts
- Video
- Expert and Solution-Oriented Guides and White Papers
Decision Stage
- Product Comparisons
- Case Studies
- Free Trials/Downloads
- Product-Focused Content
Loyalty Stage
- User guides
- Product-focused articles
- Product updates
- Customer newsletters
- Promotions and loyalty programs
- News and event details
- Surveys
According to the 2018 Demand Gen Report, buyers engage with on average 13 pieces of content before making a decision. So it’s really important that you give a lot of thought to the quality pieces of content that will drive your audience to action and guide them seamlessly through the buyer journey.