A New Plan for a New Year

A new year is the perfect time for crafting your marketing strategy for 2024. With all the other responsibilities pulling you in multiple directions, marketing might be at the bottom of your list. But an effective marketing campaign can not only build brand awareness, it can also build a pipelines of qualified leads that turn into customers. Here are some key strategies to build a marketing plan appropriate for your business.

Know your audience. Many entrepreneurs think that “anyone” is their ideal customer. Just because everyone uses soap doesn’t mean that your soap business will appeal to everyone. As a small business, you’ll have the biggest advantage in a niche. To develop a niche and to appeal to buyers within it, you need to understand their pain points, problems, triggering events and priorities. Think about your existing customers and who you enjoy working with. Use this as a starting point to get inside your ideal customer’s head.

Emphasize your value proposition. If there’s no difference between you and your competitors, there’s no reason why someone would be compelled to work with you. Your value proposition is what will differentiate you from others in your space and make up your prospects’ minds that you’re the provider to go with. Know what you do better than anyone else in the industry and then convey this in a compelling way.

Understand the power of existing customers. On average, acquiring a new customer costs five times more than closing an existing one. This means you shouldn’t stop marketing once they’ve made a purchase. Identify your opportunities for repeat purchasing, up-selling and cross-selling. Because your existing customers have already made a purchase, they already know, like and trust you. If you provide a good experience, you’ve given them a reason to do business with you again.

Consider blogging. Blogging is a great way to generate organic traffic, particularly for those prospects who haven’t made a purchasing decision yet. It also can establish credibility in your space and position you as a thought leader. Add a call-to-action at the end for visitors to subscribe to your blog and receive emails. This is a great way to start collecting leaders and offering potential customers a way to get information.

Of course this just scratches the surface of marketing ideas. Find the ones that work best for you and your business and then put them into a regular plan of action.