My small business web marketing strategy is to keep it simple.
Simple for me is:
- in focus
- scalable
- systematic and teachable,
- can be used, and
- it is easily measurable.
Of course, it must also be effective.
When diving into web marketing for your small business, it’s a good idea to explore your options, but then you have to pick and choose. Unless you have millions of dollars and a great team, you won’t be able to execute all web marketing strategies effectively.
Elements of a great small business web marketing strategy
For me, simple business marketing strategies are those that are focused, scalable, systemic, and leveraged.
1. Focus on your company’s web marketing strategies
Focus on criticism. “Pick and stick” to some basic web marketing activities. Stand out in those activities and do them consistently.
Consistency is a natural consequence of being focused. Don’t try to do it all in 2 weeks. Instead, once you’ve chosen your top web marketing strategies, develop an action plan and follow through.
For example. If you decide to focus on article and video marketing, develop a posting timeline. Resolve to publish a certain number of articles and videos each month. Act consistently. Also establish a realistic timeline. At first, you can review your timeline.
Think in terms of years, not weeks. If you publish 2 articles and 2 videos every month, in 2 years you will have almost 100 articles and videos published. Even if each article and video attracts 1 visitor to your website each week, that equates to 200 visitors per week.
In addition, it will create a large bank of articles and videos that, in itself, will generate credibility. Some articles and some videos will not have the same impact as hundreds of articles and videos.
I mainly post articles on EzineArticles and videos on YouTube because those publishing platforms get the most views and generate the most traffic.
2. Choose marketing strategies that are scalable
Scalable, in the sense in which I mean, is being able to start small with a limited or no budget, and build on your success. As revenue grows, you can “scale” it by investing increasing profits in marketing activities of your choice.
The reality for many small businesses, especially when starting out, is that there aren’t many resources for marketing. It is important to be able to start with little or no investment.
3. Systematic and teachable
I am a DIY and hands-on marketer for my business. When you know your core marketing activities well, you are in a much better position to hire him because you know how it should be done. You also know how to measure results.
Simple means that it turns your web marketing strategy into a system. You have a plan and you execute it consistently. No need to reinvent the wheel. Instead, wash, rinse and repeat … once an effective system is established.
Keep doing your main activities over and over again. Keep in mind that it can take a little time to develop an effective web marketing system. Once you do, you can easily hire it or train someone from your organization to do it.
Example: Going back to the article and video marketing example, not only will you have a posting timeline, but you will develop article writing techniques and video templates that you can use over and over again. Over time, you will write articles and create videos faster.
4. Leveraging your marketing activities
Leveraging your marketing activities builds on previous work. Taking advantage of web marketing activities allows you to exponentially develop your web presence.
You can do better when you choose marketing activities that complement each other.
The best way to explain this is with an example. Going back to the article and video marketing example, you can take advantage of those two complementary activities. The content of your article can be your video content.
Leveraging is also natural as you build a web presence. As you publish more quality articles, you have more content available to your readers. The same goes for videos. Once they read your articles and watch your videos, your other work is there for people (i.e. potential clients) to read and see.
More content also builds credibility … as long as it’s quality content.
5. Easily measurable
Choose small business web marketing strategies that present you with ways to measure results. If you don’t know what is working, you won’t know what to do. You want to focus only on effective activities.
The first part of being measurable is determining the results you are looking for.
- Is it the number of visitors to your website?
- How about the number of views of articles or videos?
- Is it the number of new customers?
It’s probably all of these. Ultimately, it is the number of new customers and revenue. However, it is important to measure a variety of figures / data.
Do some research to find out what are good numbers and what are bad. You must set goal posts.
However, don’t stop a marketing strategy or activity prematurely because you’re not getting great results right away. Web marketing takes time. You will have to adjust and test your activities and your system.
Which leads to the second part of being measurable: testing and adjusting. Take a look at what’s working and then tweak any weak areas. This is an ongoing process.
For example, some types of articles receive more visits and clicks than others. In your market, you will have to try different article approaches to see which one works best for your business.
