Strategic Marketing For Your Small Business
By Janet Bartoli | April 20, 2024 | Thought Leadership
Has it become increasingly difficult to gain transparency into your business growth trajectory?
No matter how hard you look, it can feel like your company’s growth is always one step ahead of you.
Many of our clients have been there. It feels as though you’re seeing others succeed, showing up in Google’s search results, but your company seems to be missing out.
In other words, invisible.
What if I told you that elusive growth isn’t hidden at all? Instead, it’s right in front of you…
The missing piece is called strategic marketing for business!
That sound interesting? It is!
From navigating the current climate to harnessing the power of digital tools, aligning your strategic vision with tactical implementation, and mastering the fundamentals of SEO, can prepare and equip you with the insights you need to propel your agency forward.
Table of Contents:
The Current State of Marketing for Small Business
The Absence of Internal Marketing Teams
The Issue of Non-existent Marketing Budgets
Understanding Digital Marketing for Your Business
The Power of Digital Marketing
Moving Beyond Competitor-focused Marketing
Breaking Free from Competitor Influence
The Importance of a Strategic Marketing Plan
Aligning Marketing with Business Goals
Finding Your North Star: How Strategy Guides You
Paving the Way Forward: A Case Study Approach
Moving Beyond Competitor-focused Marketing
Breaking Free from Competitor Influence
Cultivating Innovation Within Your Business
Achieving Success through Consistent Efforts
The Current State of Marketing for Small Business
Let’s face it – many small businesses are very slow to adopt modern marketing strategies.
With many lacking internal marketing teams, they’re left stumbling in the dark. After speaking with countless numbers of executives, business development managers, and key stakeholders in a wide variety of small-mid size businesses, I’ve noticed a common theme.
A lack of current, actionable digital marketing knowledge and strategy that has been largely absent.
The Absence of Internal Marketing Teams
This isn’t just an assumption; this is a reality for most organizations out there.
A lack of dedicated marketing resources often leads to missed opportunities and stunted growth.
Without a team steering their branding ship, these businesses struggle to navigate through today’s digital waters effectively.
Their voice gets lost in the vast sea of competition.
This can happen very quickly, in a matter of a few short months, one business can go from “invisible” and struggling to a plan that continuously provides quality sales leads, and interested prospects looking for their help.
The Issue of Non-existent Marketing Budgets
Budget plays another crucial role here. Believe it or not, many businesses operate with no specific budget set aside for marketing initiatives.
According to a recent study conducted by UpFlip, 66.3% of small business owners spend less than $1,000 on marketing each year.
This approach can leave them trailing behind more proactive competitors who understand that you have to invest in your business by employing the right type of marketers – especially when we talk about effective brand positioning and lead generation.
Moving on from these common pitfalls requires both understanding and action.
It starts by recognizing how vital strategic digital marketing is for reaching potential clients efficiently and convincingly—a topic we’ll delve into deeper as we progress with this series.
So stay tuned.
Understanding Digital Marketing for Your Business
Digital marketing isn’t just a buzzword. It’s a crucial part of business growth, especially for all size businesses.
But the question remains – what exactly is digital marketing?
The Power of Digital Marketing
Think about digital marketing as an open highway with no traffic.
There are countless lanes (channels) you can use to reach your destination (business goals).
Some prefer the fast lane of social media paid advertising while others enjoy the scenic route provided by content creation and SEO.
The stats don’t lie either; there’s a general lack of understanding about digital marketing in many staffing agencies that could be hampering their potential growth.
Bridging the Knowledge Gap
Don’t be discouraged if you feel overwhelmed in this ever-evolving landscape; take the opportunity to upskill and refine your competitive edge. You can always learn more and get better at it.
You may start by asking yourself: What makes our business unique?
Once you’ve got that down, figuring out how to convey this uniqueness through various online channels becomes easier.
“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln
Moving Beyond Competitor-focused Marketing
We’ve all been guilty of competitor envy. It’s effortless to get ensnared agonizing over what they’re doing rather than concentrating on creating something novel within our own organizations.
I can tell you from lots of conversations and experiences working with so many business leaders, this occurs more often than not. Rather than focussing on what your competitors are doing, you should take a good look at what your company should be doing.
Breaking Free from Competitor Influence
Innovative strategies begin when we stop comparing ourselves with competitors but focus on crafting something new based on our strengths and audience needs.
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs
The Importance of a Strategic Marketing Plan
For most businesses, a strategic marketing plan is not just nice to have; it’s crucial.
It goes beyond being reactive and simply posting randomly across various platforms.
In a crowded marketplace, a strategic marketing plan helps small businesses differentiate themselves from the competition. This involves identifying unique value propositions, crafting compelling messaging, and developing a strong visual identity to attract qualified prospects.
By analyzing data and leveraging insights, you can create targeted campaigns that resonate with your ideal customers, leading to faster close rates, and higher-quality clients.
Aligning Marketing with Business Goals
A well-thought-out marketing strategy should align seamlessly with your business goals.
But the reality? Many are missing this vital component.
By aligning your marketing strategy with your business goals, you can make informed decisions about resource allocation, campaign planning, and budget allocation.
This ensures that your marketing efforts are focused on the activities that will deliver the greatest return on investment.
If your goal is to generate leads, your strategy might focus on optimizing your website for conversions, launching targeted advertising campaigns, and creating compelling calls to action.
No matter what your business goals are, a well-aligned marketing strategy will help you achieve them more effectively and efficiently.
The lack of a proper marketing plan can cause missed chances to expand and generate income.
When you’re in tune with your objectives, every step taken makes sense because it contributes directly to reaching those targets.
Finding Your North Star: How Strategy Guides You
Think of your strategic marketing plan as a compass—it points you towards where you want to go.
With no clear direction or focus (your ‘North Star’), efforts become scattered and less effective—like trying to sail without knowing which way is north.
Paving the Way Forward: A Case Study Approach
To illustrate, let’s consider an example from our own experience helping clients grow their businesses through inbound marketing strategies tailored specifically for recruitment firms.
We saw increased rankings after implementing just a basic SEO program.
Making sure their website had user experience as a focus, reviewing all content within the website, developing a method and strategy for building authoritative content.
From there, we observed more visibility on search results leading subsequently to more clicks followed by requests for meetings—and eventually resulting in sales.
So while each step may seem small individually, when put together they create a compelling journey towards success.
Moving Beyond Competitor-focused Marketing
When it comes to strategic marketing for the small business, a common trap is becoming too absorbed in what competitors are doing.
While understanding the competition is important, obsessing over their strategies can hinder your own innovation and growth.
Breaking Free from Competitor Influence
The key to breaking free from competitor influence lies in focusing on your unique strengths as an agency.
Ask yourself: What makes us different? How do we add value for our clients?
Discovering responses to these queries can assist you in establishing novel and successful marketing plans that make you stand out from the rest.
It’s not about being better than the competition – it’s about being different.
Think of it this way: if all football teams only copied each other’s plays without innovating or tailoring strategies based on their players’ skills, games would be pretty dull.
The same applies here; uniqueness sparks interest and drives success.
Cultivating Innovation Within Your Business
Innovation starts with identifying gaps within your industry – areas where customer needs aren’t fully met by existing services.
These insights give birth to new ideas which could potentially transform into competitive advantages for your business.
To put this into practice, start a simple SEO program focused around topics relevant to your specialization.
The new AI based search engines require expertise, experience and authoritativeness.
You must own your specialization.
With consistent effort and time, such initiatives have been shown to improve search rankings, increase page visibility, drive clicks, generate leads, and ultimately result in sales conversions.
Yes, Search Engine Optimization still works in 2024 and beyond, but now you have to take the advancement of AI within search to ensure its effectiveness.
Achieving Success through Consistent Efforts
Digital marketing isn’t a one-time activity, but rather requires continuous dedication towards improving practices based on analytics and data feedback loops.
Don’t get discouraged if results don’t show immediately – in fact you should expect this.
Knowing that marketing is a marathon, not a sprint, will help you realize more longer term.
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