5 Signs Your Small Business Could Use a Marketing Boost

Are you failing to attract new clients? Unable to convert leads? Not seeing a return on your marketing efforts?

If yes, you’re not alone.

With over 30.7 million small businesses in the country, the competition is quite steep. Marketing cannot be an after-thought.

And yet, do you know that almost 50% of small businesses are spending less than 2 hours each week on marketing?

It’s no wonder then that so many small businesses are struggling to establish their brands and retain customers.

We’re going to discuss other signs that you can check for to see if your small business could do with a marketing boost.

However, before we address this issue, let’s first define what marketing is.

What exactly is marketing?

The widely accepted definition of marketing according to the American Marketing Association states that:

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

This is a pretty comprehensive definition. To add on, the objective and goal of marketing is to deliver valuable content that’s relevant to your target audience. And ultimately, your marketing strategy should result in your clients taking some form of action.

Right, with that out of the way, here are the signs that reveal whether or not you need to reinvent and rethink your marketing strategy.

Sign #1 Your business doesn’t have an online presence

The world has gone digital and despite this, 36% of small businesses do not have a website! That’s 3 out of 10 businesses or 11 million small businesses in the U.S.

Expecting people to discover your business and patronize it without an online presence is going to be a real uphill task.

It’s not just a website that’s required, but various social media accounts for your small business. Focus on establishing an Instagram account, a Facebook page, a LinkedIn page, and a Twitter account.

Being present digitally is pivotal because 70 to 80% of people will look up a company online before they ever visit it or make a purchase.

However, having an online presence is only the first step of your online marketing endeavors.

Sign #2 You don’t understand content marketing

Having a website and social media accounts for your business is great. Now, we need people to be able to actually find your products and or services when they make a search.

Enter content marketing and SEO.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is:

“…the strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

So, the content you create – whether advertisements, emails, sales pages, blogs, white papers, videos, vlogs, ebooks, or case studies – should all be relevant and optimized for search so your targeted audience can find it when they type in a search.

And speaking of audiences…

Sign #3 You don’t know who your target market is Not everyone is your customer.

Knowing this gives you the leverage needed to create business marketing content that will resonate with your ideal customer.

What are your ideal customers’ pain points? What challenges are they facing? And how can your product or service solve these problems?

This is the winning formula for creating great marketing campaigns that will yield results.

Now, if you have done everything up until this point, but are still struggling to convert, it might be time to reinvent your brand story.

Sign #4 Your brand story isn’t strong enough

Founded in 1939, Marvel Comics wasn’t exactly a household name until the 60s when their first-generation superheroes were created.

The business really took off in 1982 when they decided they could use a marketing boost and entered into a collaboration with Hasbro to launch what would be their game-changing marketing tool - comic books.

The results?

Within two months of the first comic book being released, 20% of their target customers – young boys aged 5 to 12 – each had at least two G.I Joe figurines. Today, Marvel merchandise brings in $4 billion worth of revenue – this is excluding revenue from their movies.

What are we saying?

Is your current brand story serving you? If not, it might be time to rebrand and reinvent your company story.

Sign #5 Your marketing isn’t consistent

Where small business marketing is concerned, you want people to remember your brand. This can only happen if you have consistent marketing campaigns. In other words, your marketing efforts must be strategic.

Why is this necessary?

The psychology behind consumer purchasing says that people don’t typically buy a product the first time they see it. This means, as a business, you must create different marketing campaigns for each of the stages in a consumer buying cycle.

And for this reason, good marketers will create sales funnels where they are able to capture client information including email addresses so they can keep in touch with their prospects and build trust. Whenever the lead is ready to make a purchase, guess who they will turn to first?

Conclusion

Good marketing strategies can be the difference between success and failure. Ensure your small business receives the marketing boost it needs this 2021.

If you would like to schedule a consultation with one of our strategists to map a way forward for your business, contact us today.