No matter your field, having a well-defined marketing strategy is vital for your enterprise to grow and gain wide traction. Especially in an e-commerce business, you need to find customers so that you can attract them to your business; therefore, using online marketing to your advantage is imperative. You must constantly and closely monitor your strategic planning to ensure that the expected outcome is positive and that the required adjustments are made according to the circumstance. That can be a challenge. Luckily, SMBGU offers the following insights on
attracting — and retaining — new customers.
Identify Your New customers
When putting together your marketing strategy, the first step is to clearly define your client base, which takes some internet research and brainstorming, not to mention actually getting out there and talking to various demographics. Think about what kind of people will be attracted to your service or product by starting with general categories like men, women, children. You can then break down the class by age, income, location, etc. The aim is to arrive at a specific target audience but not that specific to cut out potential customers.
Create an SEO-Friendly Website
An effective SEO practice can not only place your business at the top of search engine results, but it's also an excellent way to section and target your customers. While SEO is crucial, companies must also create engaging content that offers value. A website is one of the best-known organic strategies to put to use. While you can design the site yourself, it's best to hire a web designer to create and develop your website to look appealing and readily
accessible.
Free Advertising
Especially when you're first launching your business, you probably won't have a sizable budget allocated for advertising — yet it goes without saying that advertising is vital to your business. Thankfully, a lot of social media platforms are free to use. Likewise, you can use a free Instagram story template to help you get the word out. By creating appealing materials for nothing more than a few minutes of your time, you're sure to connect with more potential customers!
Hire the Right Staff
Before you even post the job description on the internet, you need to create a payroll system that will help you manage your finances, pay your staff, and handle your taxes with no mistakes. This can feel overwhelming. However, the process doesn't have to be that difficult for you. You can choose between in-house, outsourced, or payroll service options, depending on which is best for you and your business. While in-house payrolls mean you or your staff handles the bookkeeping, outsourcing allows a third party to manage the system. Ultimately, your business type and needs will determine whether to keep this in-house or outsource. Hiring the right people can make or break your business — that's why it's important to never rush the hiring process, no matter how slow it might seem. Identify the position you need filled and plan your employee recruitment by determining the job's required skills and experience. Make sure you choose the candidates that best fits the job requirements and
provide them with training — if necessary — on how your business's values and mission.
Create an Affiliate Program
Many small businesses create affiliate programs to retain their customers. This system means that your customers can sell your products for you in exchange for an incentive. The customer can use whatever means to sell what they desire, including social media, their website, etc. Affiliates get people talking about the company and help you expand your business by teaching people about your products or services.
The Bottom Line
Figuring out how to attract and retain customers is not necessarily difficult. To some degree, it's a matter of common sense, but it also requires some tactical business moves. Just remember to be flexible, plan ahead, and see what works best for your startup. SMBGU provides a networking community for aspiring entrepreneurs, small business owners and customers looking to find and support businesses and/or events in their local community. Please contact us at smbgu12@gmail.com about your business or non-profit.
Article Submitted By Tina Martin
Life Coach and Creator of Ideaspired.com
