- Both aim for more readers, visitors and customers.
- Both need to follow search engine rules to gain success.
5 Things you Must know about Branding your Small Business
Branding a business and that took a small one is quite a daunting task. It is however doable with some forethought and consistency. With some tips you can establish your brand in the market and make your own space.
Knowing Your Customer: Customer is the king in the business circle and everyone in the scheme of things demand plug and play facilities. The world has moved beyond logo and designs. You need to build relationships with your customer. This is possible when you are fully aware of what they need and can you serve them on a platter. As a businessman you need to understand what they purchase, why they purchase and how they purchase. Which channels they use to peek into businesses similar to that of yours.
Zero in to your niche audience the ones who benefit the most from what you offer. Customize your brand and services to this niche segment to focus on them primarily rather than trying to create an appeal at once on several quarters. As your business grows and enter into new markets you will for sure carve out more niche sectors which will need to be tapped. When you begin marketing for your niches then you can design value propositions with each target market in mind and address their distinct needs.
Knowing Yourself: First step begins by knowing yourself and your product. What inspired you to create the business? Is there anything new that you are bringing on the table for your customers that would compel the audience to look into the product and go ahead to buy them? Your brand must sell itself. You can make it by offering the simplest solution for a common problem which ails a customer or you are offering something unique not available in the market. Whatever it may be it is that something vital that you have to offer for your potential customers. Focus on that and deliver the best, customers will make a beeline for you in the long run.
14 Reasons Why Your Small Business Needs A Blog
Communicating Effectively: As people say, “first impression is the last impression”, it is very important to get the first step right. The product may or may not be good but hallmark of good salesperson is that they turn the ordinary into extraordinary through their tongue. In the process your customer himself will start advocating your product just because he fell in love with you in the first place. So open communication always helps you in your business and the world starts taking notice of your company. Investing time and energy into fostering long-lasting relationships with your customers will pay you rich dividends in future.
Design to Impress: A well designed product sells on its own since appearance counts. The style and design of your logo, headline, catchy phrases, color, and so on must be unique, lend an aesthetic appeal and touch the heart of the masses. Such products give a surety to your customer that it won’t go wrong. This reinforces the value of your product in the mind of your customer and eventually builds the brand. You need to turn your customer into a fan of your product with the best designed e-mailers, brochures, advertisements, websites, etc.
Consistency: More often than not you know what your favourite drink tastes like, you know what the smell of the scent that you use every day, and you can make out what the phone which you ordered online looks like. This is made possible due to the familiarity and consistency of products such as these which you use regularly. In the same way it is utmost important that the product you wish to sell is known to the audience and you are consistent with it. Without consistency your product will not be recognized and profits won’t come to you. So build up on the great array of designs that you have come up with for your product and deliver them on a platter for your customer. Your research, design and message consistency determines your success besides building long-lasting and profitable relationships and the game begins with your website, the front-end of your business.
14 Reasons why your small business needs a blog
In this age of content marketing and smart devices, it goes without saying that your small business needs a blog. Even you are directly not selling online, an interesting blog page will have a positive effect on your customers and website visitors, who will definitely want to know more about you. It thus attracts traffic and builds authority. Here are the various reasons why you need to blog regularly.
Direct Communication Channel: This is a direct means of communication between you and customers. It enables you to get in touch on a more personal level. Small business blogs help you to exchange views and discuss the trends in your particular field. It enables the customers to look up to you as a source of valuable industry-specific information.
SEO Friendly: Business blogs always attract a good SEO ranking. A well-written blog provides valuable content. As we are aware, search engine bots are always looking for fresh content to crawl. A website with fresh and unadulterated content is a favourite with Google and other top search engines, who will obviously elevate its page rank.
User-friendly: Having a blog doesn’t require you to have programming or designing skills. You may choose user-friendly platforms like WordPress and get the images from free sites like Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons, Flickr Commons, PDPhoto.org, Publicdomainpictures.net, Free Stock Photos and Good Free Photos.
More Customers: According to a survey, it has been found that more than 50% of businesses that have a blog get more customers. In this era of online marketing, people do not watch self-aggrandising advertisements and buy their products right away. They will check out if the business they are dealing with, is online, in the first place. They will also trust a website which has a blog displaying the company’s expertise in their respective field, before trusting them enough to do business.
Share your Expertise: A blog gives you a voice which will be heard by thousands, if not millions. People will seek your opinion as they will begin to regard you as an expert in your respective field.
Blog is a two way conversation: Blog c comments by your readers, result in a to and fro exchange of thoughts leading to a healthy conversation. You can thus invite users for giving their insights regarding a trending topic and see the diverse view and angles to that particular topic. You may thus get to know how people’s views differ from point to point regarding the same topic.
Creativity and Entertaining: Blogging need not be a chore. It can be something you look forward to doing regularly. Your love for blogging can make your blog entertaining and much sought after by your subscribers and daily website visitors. And your blog doesn’t have to be serious; a dash of humour when added appropriately can be like an icing on the cake.
Expand your Horizons: When you have a blog to write, you need to seek out new information regarding current affairs, and trends in your chosen field. As you go about your daily life you may get inspiration from movies, talking to friends, or taking a stroll around the block; you need to jot them in your notepad.
Blog and Content Marketing: Having a blog helps you in making a content marketing strategy. Accordingly you may plan your blog posts, as part of a strategy. You may thus have a blog, to get you business leads as well by capturing interested subscribers by means of a form, offering them value, giving freebies and finally putting up an irresistible offer!
Free Publicity: Business blogs, along with social media are the best way to advertise your products or services. Many people can get to know about you. In fact many bloggers are interviewed by the press, which gets free publicity.
Confidence and Rapport: A blog builds confidence and rapport between you and your subscribers. Your subscribers will begin to trust you and your opinions.
Stay on top: A blog helps you to stay on top. Search engines will obviously keep you on top of their results and you will definitely get more web visitors than your competitors who don’t blog like you do.
In this video, “The Introduction to blogging” Eli the Computer Guy, talks about why we need to blog and what are the advantages.
On his YouTube Channel, Eli the Computer Guy provides in depth information about IT as a profession. All his videos, are created with an eye towards ROI, and TCO.
Let the world know about you: Your small business blogs can also let the world know about your company, and the kind of business you are into. You may also let them know about the key persons who run the company and the staff who are the life-blood of the company. You may let them know what happens behind the scenes, through your blog pictures.
Analytics: Last but not the least, you will get to know more about your visitors through the blog analytics. This will help you know what kind of postings draw the majority of the audience, and you may use this knowledge to your best advantage.
It is thus very important for any business to have a blog, which is up and running. Make sure you are consistent in your postings so that your followers know when to expect your next blog and eagerly await the same.
9 Content Marketing Ideas for Success!
Marketing has evolved over the years, and attempts to woo future customers with traditional self-praising ads are just not adequate. Customers want to know more about your product, interact with you, and see if they are getting value. It is only then, they will become advocates of your brand and buy your products and services. Thus, content marketing is a means of achieving this trust and building a long lasting relationship.
Make a top 20 list
You can start off by making a ‘Top-20’ listing; search the web for top Bloggers, Tweeters and Instagram influencers, for your particular field. You can provide detailed information about these 20 people and what is so special about them. Let the audience know why you are so interested in their blog. Be genuine and make it interesting. You may also tag these influencers, in your postings. Some of these influencers may even re-tweet you, thus giving a lot of traffic back to your website and even improving its SEO value.
Answer industry specific questions
Content writing is all about providing value. People are always on the lookout for valuable information. You can answer various doubts pertaining to your industry via forums like Quora as well as your own blog. People will thus, get to know you by reading your answers and this helps you gain the reputation of being an expert in your chosen field.
Let the world know your Team
Interview your own team member. Let the audience know what an average day in the office, feels like. Talk about their aspirations, dreams, life and current affairs. Your fans and visitors on social media, as well as your blog, will realize that they are not dealing with machines, but human beings.
Reveal your new products (sneak peek)
Reveal your new products to your audience first! They will feel special by your gesture and love to be the first ones to start the buzz.
Make a tutorial video about your product
Make a video about how your product is used. Not every product needs a tutorial for usage instructions, as people will usually be familiar with them. However, if it is a new and revolutionary product, about to take the market by storm, it doesn’t hurt to show the world how it actually works. And the video will definitely generate a buzz!
Have a 50% OFF sale
Nothing sounds dearer to the human ears than hearing someone say “FREE” OR “50% off”. So capitalize on these magical words, and announce a 50% sale. Also make sure it is for not more than 3 days; create a sense of urgency! Make a nice graphic, put it on your website and watch the magic happen!
Hold a contest
Outside of a 50% sale, the other word which generates an equal amount of interest is “Contest”. Plan a contest for your fans. It may be as simple as taking a ‘Selfie’ with your product and posting it on social media. You may use the services of Gleam, in order to increase the chance of your contest being shared and becoming viral.
Participate at an event and write about it
People love to hear valuable tips as well as experiences of others in the same field; you may include such topics to make your content writing all the more interesting. For example, if you were at a trade show, you may re-collect your experiences there and write a blog about the whole trade show participation. You may even compose a point wise checklist of the “Do’s and don’ts about trade show participation”.
Share the inspiring story of how you became an entrepreneur
People crave for inspiration, and if it is coming from people of their own field – then there is nothing like it! Share your story and tell the audience about what inspired you to start off on your own. Tell them about the difficulties you faced and how you overcame them to setup your own business. Let them know, what it takes for a business to succeed.
These are the different ways in which you can use content marketing to provide value as well as market your products and services.
The Importance of Content Marketing for any Business
A lot has been said about Content Marketing and how it helps in SEO. So what’s it really about and why do businesses need it?
People have been watching traditional advertisements over the years, and really lost trust in all those self-aggrandising slogans and punch lines.
The world is now changing, and customers are getting more interactive. They want to know everything about their product, how it looks from different angles. They want to interact with the manufacturer to know more about it, read the customer reviews, and buy them only when all their doubts are satisfied.
All this is possible thanks to digital and social media. Traditional media obviously couldn’t get you all this extra interactivity and information. Speaking of social media, this is used to create an awareness of our product. However, everything cannot be crammed onto social media. One obviously cannot write blogs on one’s social media timeline. What can be done, is, links with pictures can be posted, so that the interested ones can click on the link, visit your website and read through your content, whatever it is about. In fact Google is giving preference to content than other SEO technicalities.
What is Content Marketing?
As the word suggests, content is written by businesses to market their products or services. The primary aim of content marketing is to supply valuable and FREE content to attract an audience and build a following. The type of content you create must impart valuable information and may be indirectly related to your product or field. Thus, people will interact with you, trust you and listen to your take on the subject at hand. Last but not the least, chances are, that they will also be curious about your products and services. And want to know more about it.
Your content can then be used to gradually educate the audience about your product so that they can trust what you are offering. Thus, the FREE and valuable content can convert prospects into clients, and clients into repeat buyers.
How is it different from Social Media Marketing?
When you are marketing via Social media, you tend to post various text, images, and videos on Facebook. This means that the source of content is within Facebook itself and being used to achieve your ends.
However, when it comes to a content marketing strategy, your website’s blog is the place where all the action happens. The content will be posted on your blog page. Then, you leverage the power of social media by posting a link to the blog article, infographic, video on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google PLUS and other Social Media.
Now that we know what Content marketing is about, why should we go about it, or what are its advantages? So here we go:
- It builds trust: People do not perceive traditional advertising as seen on TV and newspapers, as trustworthy content. Gone are the days, when the ‘loudest shouter’ on traditional media won more customers! This is where Content Marketing comes into play. In this case, the users themselves share likeable content with their friends. The message is spread by the most trusted media i.e., via ‘word-of-mouth’.
- Gets you conversions: Content marketing can also help in the generation of quality leads. The more you satisfy a need, more the engagement you will generate. You can write exceptional content. Now there is again two types of content and that is:
- Un-Gated content: This content is readily available as part of your About and Blog pages. This contains all the information the audience wants to know about your company and your product. This information is FREE and readily available on the website.
- Gated content: This can be more specific information related to the subject, written as downloadable PDF. This can be accessed by registering your name and email ID. Depending on the perceived value of the information, you may ask users to give additional details like telephone number, address, occupation among other things. These registered users are your leads. These leads can be converted into customers at the appropriate time.
- It builds solid relationships: This is a type of marketing which gives more to the customers instead of asking them to buy products. Customers get a lot in terms of free information and knowledge. The video blogs also provide entertainment as well as the latest trends in the given field. Customers can, in turn, comment on the blog and share with friends if it is interesting. Thus, solid relationships are built with fans, who themselves become your brand ambassadors and propagate your product to friends via social media.
- It can be measured for effectiveness: While is it very difficult to measure the effect of traditional advertising, one can definitely see the results in content marketing. The likes, shares and level of engagement of a given blog posting can easily be ascertained. Steps can be taken to mould future content based this particular response.
- It does multiple tasks: Unlike traditional media, Content marketing can actually serve as a one-man army i.e., it can handle multiple tasks, generate awareness of the product and spread the word to prospective audiences. Once published, it can also initiate dialogue and thus facilitate interactivity.
- Influence people even before they think of buying it: A content marketing strategy begins after a ‘buyer persona identification’, or identification of the target market. In a target market, you may have different personality traits and obviously unique personalities. Once we identify who our market is, we need to find out what they are lacking, and how we can genuinely help them with our product or services. With the help of our content, we can convey this message to the concerned audience and thus develop a rapport, even before they think of buying our product.
- Content is well perceived if it comes with a social message: It will establish you not just as a business, but also someone who stands for human values and does their bit for the society and country as a whole. People would love your human values
Thus, we can see how content marketing can be influential, and powerful medium. One can use a solid strategy, convey our message to the intended audience in a subtle and respectful way.
