6 PRACTICAL MARKETING STRATEGIES
When you’re done with all the motivational podcasts, quotes to inspire on Instagram and business books’ theory, you need straight forward practical advice on actions you can take to move your business forward. Like things you can actually do, right now, that together and over time will accumulate to become what we commonly think of as success. There’s no getting around the hard work part of the equation, you just have to get in there and do it.
KEEP IT SIMPLE
I want to preface every tip below with this exceptionally useful statement. It’s easy to get caught up, swept away and quickly off track with all the latest and greatest but as John Wooden says “champions do the basics brilliantly”. I love this because it’s so true. Until you’ve got your fundamentals right there is little point investing in fancy bells and whistles. Get your branding ducks in a row, create a highly edited, consistent experience of your brand both on and off line and treat your employees as your greatest asset.
How to – create a modern set of brand filters through which customers can experience your brand. These include a logo, font suite, colour palette and tone of voice. Carry these elements across your website, social platforms, packaging, instore design and promotional collateral.
COLLABORATE
Collaboration is one of the best ways to grow your business. The key is to partner with brands that already have your customers or ‘like-minded customers’. Find a complementary business close by, one that is not the same as yours but that operates within a similar industry, and approach them with a mutually beneficial arrangement. This could be a value add or free service for your customers or a grouped bundle deal which you promote both physically in store and digitally across both your social media channels.
How to – create a list of businesses in your area that you’d like to target. Reach out to the owners one month at a time, personally offer them something complimentary and then work closely to find an offer that is exciting to you both.
ADD VALUE ON SOCIAL
Focus on story telling not story selling. The technology that our favourite social media platforms are built on allows you to tell your story on your own terms in your own voice, meaning you no longer need to rely completely on the traditional media to do it for you. Take advantage of this and when posting to Instagram or Facebook think about either educating, inspiring or entertaining your audience. Sharing your unique why and simply being you is your single greatest advantage. Teach your friends about a topic on which you are an expert, provide a special insight into your journey and what you learned from it or reveal something about you that not everyone would know. Think of it as ‘dating’ your audience, bring a little romance and court your customers as they get to know you.
How to – utilise DM (direct message) on Instagram and reach out to offer something of personalised value. A beautiful brand did exactly this to me yesterday, saying they’d love for me to experience their brand “just because”. What a beautiful way of wording it.
CURATE USER GENERATED CONTENT
Peer to peer recommendations are powerful. Think about it. You are so much more likely to try a product or service if one of your friends recommends it to you. This is what User Generated Content (UGC) is all about. Leveraging positive and personal reviews of your brand from your loyal customers. Because of social media, people are inspired to experience and take action like never before and they do this by actively seeking out to be a real part of your brand in a reciprocal conversation.
How to – in every delivery box include a branded card that incentivises the recipient to post a pic of themselves enjoying your product. Each of your customers has an audience of their own and as they post the image they are warmly introducing their friends to your brand.
ENGAGE MICRO INFLUENCERS
Micro influencers are defined as having less than 20K followers. At this level, they are still very involved in personally interacting with their audience, frequently liking and commenting on posts from their followers and responding as their followers do the same on their own feed. Because of this, micro influencers have fantastic engagement which is a valuable indicator on Instagram.
How to – partner with well chosen thought leaders who actually have an influence on their audience. Scroll through popular hashtags in your industry and find accounts that you feel are a good fit for your brand first and then consider their stats. Read more about Influencer Marketing here.
TRY SOME SOCIAL ADS
At the moment, ads on Facebook and Instagrm are considered underpriced attention. This means that relative to the price of traditional advertising on tv or in print, you can get in front of a huge new audience for not much more than $10 a day. Your objective should be set to drive conversions to your website where people can find out more about you, consume your content and ultimately get in touch. What determines your ROI (Return On Investment) is your creative. So try different images and copy across a month and see what gives you the best results.
How to – spend an hour each day for a week learning how to create great ads. There are endless free guides on what to do and how to do it. Just google and read or You Tube and watch.