We all know that effective, results-driven marketing and promotion is essential for above-the-curve success in business. Whether it’s finding the best article writers for hire, using social media to utmost advantage, or establishing a unique, singular brand for your product or service, your small to medium size business travels an especially challenging road in its quest to win in the competitive marketplace.
Here are 3 valuable guidelines for SMB owners to follow in this pursuit:
Working with Top-Flight Creatives
Hiring and working with top tier writers, designers, videographers, and so forth is tantamount for success for small to medium size businesses. As a business owner, you want your enterprise to stand out from the crowd with a unique, engaging corporate identity and company “personality.” This applies to your website, business cards, print marketing, videos, blogs, presence on social media, in short, everything that represents your company in image and word!
Needless to say, having the best creative people you can get goes a long way toward being successful here. Keep in mind as well, that having the “right” creative for your business is also important, a writer or graphic artist who through experience and instinct, as well as talent, is a perfect fit for your product or service.
Mastering Social Media
Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube are communication channels that essentially provide free advertising to business. Social media allows you to “talk” to prospects and clients, and it also provides outgoing word of mouth from satisfied customers that goes not from one person to another, but from one happy camper who likes your product or service to literally hundreds (or even thousands!) of prospects with one click of a mouse.
An effective social media marketing campaign can be initiated relatively quickly, is cost-effective, and can provide both long and short-term rewards. You can set up your business at a particular site in minutes, there is no charge, and exposure and lead garnishment can continue long after you’ve stopped building out at one or multiple sites.
Branding Your Business as One-of-a-Kind
Again, you want your company, and the product or service you provide, to stand out from the crowd. And after you get your prospect’s attention, you want to turn them into a customer that will give your business lasting trust and loyalty. You want to create for your company a permanent branding impression. You want your customer to think of you as one-of-a-kind, as the diamond in the rough.
This is where content marketing comes in. We’ve all heard the term “content” in terms of writing and information for the internet. Content marketing incorporates that content, as well as brochures, ebooks, white papers, videos, podcasts, webinars, etc., to share information via email or other mediums that will convert prospects into customers and customers into repeat buyers.
Michael V is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.
