What 2,000 Business Marketing Audits Have Taught Me

In today’s podcast, Derek Champagne from The Artist Evolution and Stephen Halasnik from Financing Solutions discuss the marketing best practices for small business owners based on hands-on experience. Whether you’re just starting your business or you have been in business for years, effective marketing strategies will help you achieve a great deal of success.  

Small Business Marketing 

Despite the overwhelming impact of marketing on business growth, many small business owners still put less effort into implementing effective marketing strategies that will position them at the forefront in their niche. Successful businesses have marketing plans that promote their brands and close deals. Neglecting marketing could mean being left out in the dust by more forward-thinking competitors. 

Therefore, having a marketing plan that defines your business, and identify your target audience, can make a huge impact on your business.  

What is Marketing For Small Business

As small business owners that value their business, you should implement an effective marketing strategy that will make customers aware of your product or service and help them make a buying decision. Marketing activities are the efforts you gear into promoting, buying, or selling your product or service.

It’s a comprehensive activity that involves every action you do to draw in customers and maintain a healthy relationship with them. For example, these activities include meeting potential or past clients, writing thank you emails, and returning calls and emails quickly.

Marketing for small businesses can either take place on a traditional or digital platform. Traditional marketing was the primary method companies would market their product to their customers before the advent of technology and the internet in the marketing landscape. Traditional means of marketing include outdoor marketing, print marketing, event marketing, electronic marketing, and more.

In recent times, digital marketing has come to redefine the marketing landscape. It has also brought many benefits to small business owners that would have been spending huge amounts of money on getting their products in front of potential customers. In other words, with consistent efforts, you can effectively reach your target audience through digital media. Search Engine Marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, and content marketing are some inexpensive yet effective ways you can build your brand. 

Why Is Marketing Important for Small Business Owners?

The importance of marketing for small businesses cannot be overstated. The success of your business largely depends on your ability to market your product and service effectively. You may have a great product, but you will hardly make sales if people don’t know about your business. In other words, your marketing should be at the heart of your business to keep it afloat. Below are reasons you should not neglect marketing while running your business. 

Marketing will help make people know about your products.

Through marketing, you can generate awareness and enhance the visibility of your products and services. Your customers and prospect can easily recognize your products when you get the word out there. In addition, marketing is a way of popularizing your brand by communicating with your target audience to give them an in-depth understanding of how your product can be a solution to their problem.

It helps you to compete effectively.

No matter the size of your business, you must compete to survive. Good market efforts allow you the opportunity to compete effectively with your competitors in order to grab a sizeable share of the market. If you don’t have an effective marketing strategy that quickly responds to customers’ needs, someone more prepared will take your place. You should be able to offer good customer service and a real sense of value by keeping in communication with your customers and prospects.

It optimizes sales

Optimal marketing optimizes sales. An effective marketing strategy separates your business from your competitors. When you put intense effort into marketing, you will have a higher chance of reaching many clients and closing deals. For example, you can create content around the service and the product you offer, telling your prospect and customer what they don’t know. Content marketing has become a vital force in today’s marketing strategy. Creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content can attract and retain a clearly defined audience and drive profitable customer action.

Why You Need a Marketing Plan for Your Small Business

Every successful action is built on planning. Deciding how you will go on your marketing journey will help keep you on track with your strategy. A marketing plan is a strategic roadmap you develop to organize, execute and keep track of your marketing strategy. You must have a working plan to execute your marketing strategy as it will help prevent a chaotic marketing campaign that will generate little or no results. A marketing plan helps you measure the success of your campaign. With a marketing plan, you will know what works and what doesn’t so that you know where to accelerate and areas to improve. 

A one-page strategic plan can be a great asset to your marketing campaign. When you highlight the overview of your marketing plan, priorities, and direction on a single page, it will help you and your team to easily remember what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Final Thought 

To ensure your small business’s success, you must create an innovative and flexible marketing campaign that responds to the constantly changing marketing landscape. Doing so requires due diligence, dedication, and hard work. Knowing who you are- what makes you stand out from the pack-and who your target is, plus having the right tools and execution plan, will help you create a winning marketing strategy that generates and makes the conversion.

Free and paid digital marketing tools for small businesses, including Google Analytics, Mailchimp, Hootsuite, BuzzSumo, HubSpot, and more, get you started. 

Learn About Our Guest

Derek Champagne is the CEO of The Artist Evolution, a marketing firm that manages brands and campaigns in multiple industries, from start-ups to household names. He is the author of the best-selling book “Don’t Buy A Duck,” endorsed by Seth Godin. Champagne is also a nationally published musician who has made musical contributions to the soundtracks of television shows on ABC, MTV, Bravo, Oxygen, and the E! Channel.

Learn About Financing Solutions

Financing Solutions provides an easy-to-setup unsecured business line of credit to small businesses. The small business financing product is a great cash backup plan that costs nothing to set up, nothing until used, and is inexpensive when needed. Financing Solutions is rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and 5 stars by the BBB/Google Reviews.

Unlike a traditional business bank loan, our business credit line requires no collateral or personal guarantee (except in the cases of fraud) making it an excellent alternative business financing option. Small businesses often used their line of credit for short-term expenses, working capital, to make payroll, or for a business investment especially when business cash flow is temporarily down.

Get a free, no-obligation business line of credit quote by filling out our simple 2- minute business line of credit application here.

Remember: The time to set up a credit line is when you don’t need it.