If you run a business, then obviously you’re going to be looking to grow that business and make it profitable so that you can have the kind of freedom and flexibility you truly desire, and in order to do that you’re going to need to get comfortable with marketing yourself.
This is actually something that’s a bit of a struggle point for a lot of business owners because they feel like they’re doing something wrong or annoying people by marketing their services, when in fact you’re actually doing a disservice to them and yourself by not letting them know about the products and services your business offers.
The other issue that business owners face when it comes to marketing is that they get overwhelmed and confused by all of the conflicting information available online. Marketing is surprisingly simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to find what works for you and how long you should stick with a certain tactic before knowing if it’s actually working for your business or not, so in this post we’re going to share with you some simple, but effective ways to market your business online.
Social media:
Never before has there been a better time to be in business and have access to such affordable and effective marketing than what we have available to us today through social media.
The thing with social media is to have a clear plan and objective for how you want to use it and not make the same mistake that many other business owners do by just diving straight in and posting on every platform without any real idea what they’re doing or who they’re talking to with their marketing.
The best way to do it is by first identifying where your client is hanging out and then starting with a single platform or two platforms before building it up.
Social media can also be automated to save you time, so for example, you can create a calendar with 30 days worth of content that you can then upload to a scheduling tool like Buffer that will post the content on your behalf according to the schedule you’ve chosen. This makes life so much easier, but also means that you’re staying consistent with your content even on days when you feel like you don’t have much to say.
Blogging:
Blogging is far from dead and is still one of the best ways to build a loyal audience and connect with your existing audience through creating high quality content on an ongoing basis. Blogging may seem like it’s a lot of work, but it’s truly worth the effort because it does pay off when you do it right.
The great thing about blogging is that you can get very niche specific and narrow down your audience in a way that really works for you by sharing content specific for them. For example, you could be a copywriter who talks only about strategies specific for those who are interested in learning about Biker Marketing, or you could be someone who writes about vegan skincare or food and shares tips on how to find the best products in this area.
Blogging and sharing your knowledge and experience really allows you to connect with people on a deeper level and build up the level of trust required for them to see you as an authority who they would buy from down the road.
Again, blogging is also something that can and should be automated, so if you have some ideas for posts, then you should create those in advance and then schedule them to go out in your calendar because the best way to grow your blog is through high quality and consistent content that your audience will find useful.
Webinars:
Webinars have been very popular over the past few years for business owners who are looking for a way to market and sell their products and services in a way that leverages their time, so if you’ve ever toyed with the idea of creating a webinar that you can use to market and sell products or services related to your business, then this is definitely something you should consider. Webinars have gotten something of s bad reputation, but this has nothing to do with the webinar strategy itself and only because of how people have been using it.
When some people figured out that they could use webinars to make a lot of money in one go, they really started to get quite lazy with them and were giving minimal value, but making maximum money and pretty soon this got noticed and webinars got a reputation as being a sleazy marketing strategy.
However, the idea of a webinar is to educate and nurture, so taking the time to create a strong presentation that really helps people get a result is going to make a much bigger impact both in the long and short term.
Email marketing:
A bit like blogging, people like to claim that email marketing is dead, when it’s far from it and in fact is still one of the most powerful and effective ways to market and sell products and services online today. It’s also a great tool to use if you’re looking to create more leverage and automation in your business.
When it comes to email marketing tools, there are so many out there to choose from that it can be overwhelming to know where to even start, but they’re basically all the same in terms of features, but just the terminology being used will vary, so really what you’re looking for is something that will allow you to send regular email blasts like newsletters and then also be able to automate your emails by sending sequences according to what actions people may have taken.
We hope this post has been useful in showing you some of the main marketing strategies out there available to you that are simple, but also highly effective for your business and that will keep you focused on your main goal of growing a business that helps people and creates financial and time freedom for you.
