Marketing quick wins for small businesses

Running a business is never easy and you can spend a lot of time and money marketing and getting nothing in return. Maybe you do not have a dedicated marketing team and want to learn how you and your team can improve your marketing. Fortunately, there are so many ways to automate and maximise your marketing even with limited time, money and staff skill

As experts in providing software, web design and branding for businesses. We can help you bring in those much needed leads, improve your email marketing and excel online.

Email Marketing

We’re all familiar with newsletters as a form of email marketing, but there’s so much more out there than just sending a monthly bulletin. Email marketing can be a really powerful tool, and it’s quick to get to grips with thanks to new, easy to use (and free) software. 

We Recommend: Mailchimp If you’re not already using Mailchimp to manage your email marketing, this is one of the best tools to add to your arsenal to get great email marketing results. Mailchimp allows you to build contact lists and produce beautiful looking emails without any design knowledge. The template engine is built for ease of use. Not only is Mailchimp FREE but they also offer a paid service if you feel you want extra features which could excel your email marketing. 

Not only can you design professional looking emails, you can analyse open rates, click rates and see a full overview of who is opening your emails and what they are engaging with. 

So what is an email list?

This is where all your customer emails who have agreed to receive marketing emails and materials are stored. You must make sure that this list is stored securely and only contains the addresses of people who have agreed to receive marketing messages. This is to ensure you are staying GDPR compliant with 4 people’s data. Your email list is likely to be just a bulk one for people who have agreed to receive marketing information and is great for sending general messages like newsletters or key company announcements. But you can go one step further and segment the list to create targeted lists - perfect for marketing campaigns and tailored messaging. 

What is segmentation?

Think of the famous Terrys chocolate orange with it's many segments, this is how you should visualise your email lists. You do not want to be sending out bulk emails and annoying your contacts so categorising them into specific lists is vital to ensure they do not unsubscribe from future emails. For example for new customers you may want to send them a welcome email or a special offer, so you would keep them in their own contact list. You can create new lists just by using filters in your system of choice. For example, you could filter by sign-up date to send a message to new customers, or you could filter by company type. Creating list segments will take a little bit of time to set up at first, but once they’re done you only need to maintain and monitor them.

So how do I write engaging and informative email campaigns :

1. Personalised messages - Ensure the email is as personal as possible making the contact feel like you are contacting them privately because they are special.
2. Catchy subject line - The first thing the contact will see in their mail box, make it stand out and give them a reason to click on the email.
3. Get to the point ASAP - People do not have time to site and read through loads of text when they are busy, use graphics, images and get straight to the point. Keep your emails as short and snappy as possible.
4. Clear CTA - You want them to click something right ? make it stand out and say exactly what it does. "Get in touch", "Get my offer".
5. It's not all about hard selling - Do not always attempt to sell something, maybe you just need to let customers know something important, give them something useful such as guides, offers and maybe an insight into upcoming products / services.

Social Media Marketing

Social Media, we all have it ? well have you ever used it for business? It is one of the most powerful ways to market your business with or without paid ads. It’s easy to maximise your voice on social media with some simple scheduling and planning tools. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to have all of the social media channels for your business. Choose the channels that are more likely to resonate with your customers and attract the right attention. 

Many B2B companies find Twitter and LinkedIn tend to work best for them, while B2C companies might lean more towards Facebook and Instagram. If you want to have all the channels then go for it! Just think realistically about how much time you have to manage and run the channels and whether your customer base uses that channel as well. 

Scheduling and Planning

Just like anything there are peak times in which people use certain social media platforms. This is why it is important to gage your audience and do some research on the best times to post. This can increase engagement massively and will allow you to be seen by more people.  Don’t feel pressured to post on every channel every single day either. A few posts a week is plenty for keeping your presence up to date. You could always increase to daily posting for special events or promotional weeks. 

Communication

Customers love to know they have someone on hand if they face any problems. With social media they can contact you using private messaging or commenting on your posts. This is great way to improve customer satisfaction and trust. 

Trends & Public Events 

Keeping yourself up to scratch with what is going on in the world is a greate way to come up with ideas for offers, posts and upcoming content for your customers. Always have a look on social media to see what is trending and what is coming up in the world. For example Fathers Day, Boxing Matches, Pride Month... 

Key Social Media Tips

1. Don’t always push products and services. People switch off when they feel all they’re getting is more adverts.
2. Mix things up. Share blog posts, news articles, photos, videos. Have fun with it!
3. Join in with industry hashtags. Using hashtags helps more people see your posts - but don’t hashtag every word! Choose key phrases.
4. Always try to include an image or a link in each post - this encourages people to interact.
5. Write like a person, not a sales machine. Use language that suits your brand, but remember people love the unusual so consider experimenting with a fun and friendly tone.

Focus your efforts

We’ve discussed a lot of different ways you can maximise your marketing presence here, but the most important thing is to know where to focus your efforts. This way you’re making the most of the limited time you have for planning and actioning marketing, as well as getting the most out of it. We’re all about working smarter, not harder here at AJH Media, and we want you to do the same. 

FREE tools we recommend to improve your marketing:

1. Canva. A free and simple tool for graphic design. Create social media posts, web graphics and more. Great for putting together quick and simple stuff.
2. Google Analytics. If you’re not already using this, you’re missing out on loads of data. Google Analytics provides valuable insight to your website and tracks where traffic comes from - great 9 for measuring campaign effectiveness or where leads are coming from.
3. Moz. One of the leading platforms for SEO (search engine optimisation) keyword research. This is a next-level tool if you want to improve your content rankings on Google with effective keywords.
4. Unsplash. Access to thousands of royalty-free images, great for adding to social media posts or marketing emails.