How to get started with Marketing for your small business

Determine who your target audience is

The first step to getting started with marketing is determining your target audience and building a profile for that persona. How can you expect to speak directly to your ideal customer if you don't know whom you're targeting?

Some questions to help define your target audience:

• Who are they? (Age, gender, location.)

• What are their pain points?

• What do they want or need?

• What do they like/dislike about your company or competitors?

• What are their interests, hobbies and passions?

• What is their buying behaviour when it comes to products like yours? (Do they research online before making a purchase?)

• Are they more likely to buy online or in-store?

• How do they get information about your product category's latest trends and news (Facebook groups, magazines, newspapers)?

Offer a unique selling proposition

Define your USP.

Your USP is what differentiates your business from the competition. It's more focused on positioning than price, and it's essential to stand out in a crowded market. Defining a USP is knowing who you are, your target consumers, and your competitors.

• How to find it:

• Ask yourself why customers buy from you instead of them (or don't at all).

• Ask yourself why customers should buy from you rather than them (or again, not at all).

Use this information to craft an answer to the question, "why should we do business with you?" If there is no honest answer, then perhaps it's time to consider starting a new company once this one is out of business due mainly to its inability to differentiate itself in the marketplace!

• Strategize your marketing campaigns for your audience

• Good marketing campaigns will deliver the right message to your targeted audience.

• How you provide that message depends on what you want the targeted audience to do.

• Inform - When targeting new customers, creating awareness of your product or service is essential; this is informing.

• Persuade - If you have an existing relationship with a customer (or potential customer), persuading them to buy your product or service can be achieved through relevant messaging that provides value and incentive to act.

• Remind - You may not be selling something directly but still want to maintain brand loyalty with existing customers.

You can achieve this with creative messaging and engaging content that keeps your business front of mind for when those customers are ready to make their purchase further down the track.

Make data-driven decisions

Data is incredible and can be used to make excellent decisions. Thanks to the internet and technological advances, we are fortunate to have many tools. Data doesn't lie, so it's essential to use what you learn from your data to drive your decisions in marketing and across all aspects of your business.

You're a small business owner and want to start improving your marketing efforts. The first step is collecting data about how people find your business and engage with it (e.g., Google Analytics). Once you've collected data, you can use that information to plan how often you should post on social media or what content resonates most with your audience. After implementing a plan, use the results from this effort (both quantitative and qualitative) as input for future planning sessions.

Make it easy for customers to reach you.

Regardless of where you're at in your marketing, it's essential to make it easy for customers to reach you.

Put your website address, WhatsApp number and social media handle on your advertising, business cards and collateral materials. Make sure your contact details appear on your footer or header on your website.

This is where potential customers will most likely go first when they want to find out more about you. If a customer needs help or has questions, they should be able to contact you by phone, DM or email quickly.

A contact form makes it easy for people to communicate with you through the website without visiting social media sites or looking up your email address.

Follow up on customers with CTAs.

Now that you've successfully drawn in your audience and gotten them to commit, it's up to you to keep them engaged. Follow up with your leads by using CTAs (or "calls-to-action") on web pages and emails. A CTA is an instruction to the audience designed to provoke an immediate response and can range from asking readers to sign up for a newsletter or download a whitepaper, watching a video, or purchasing a product or service. CTAs should be clear and easy for your audience to understand and follow.

Conclusion

Marketing for your small business doesn't have to be complicated. Don't overthink it; just set a budget, implement some of the above ideas, and you'll be well on your way to success. Ultimately, marketing is all about finding new ways to connect with potential customers—and that's something every business should be able to do.