“One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.” – Abraham Maslow
When one is the owner of a business it is important to understand your target audience. To be able to assist customers quickly and effectively should be a brand’s top priority, in particular for small businesses that would like to grow with its consumers. Once the target audience is understood the next step would be to know where to find them and start communicating with them.
Any business venture strives towards success and ultimate growth. Business owners do not often have the adequate resources to focus on marketing strategies and the eventual implementation of these strategies. It is therefore of great importance that the necessary assistance is sought at the right time.
The purpose of any marketing initiative is to create a brand communication stream. This animates the flow of marketing communication between a brand and its current or potential customers. Once this flow is established the brand would want to convert these conversations into loyal customers. This is the ultimate goal of the marketing strategy. It is important to understand that this seamless flow cannot be established overnight and a continuous effort needs to be invested.
Marketing communication is an integral part of business growth and consulting with a marketing strategist would put you on the right path. The business is therefore dissected to understand current communications and the various goals. Once the business and current communication mediums have been analyzed thoroughly, the experienced marketing strategist can identify the gaps in marketing communication, once they are identified can tailored tools be presented.
For SME’s Digital Marketing is the most obvious choice as various tools such as social media advertising and Google AdWords will be used to advertise the business website. Only after 6 months of continued updates will an organic search be effective. Fast-moving consumers want access on-demand especially in the 21st century, that is why it is so important to reach a business easily, either through the business website, email address, contact form or office number. Other options to allow a business to grow is through customer recognition, in mediums such as SEO to allow for the business website to be easily found within a single Google search or boosting the desired product or service offered by the company through google advertisements (bidding is involved in boosting the product or service by the business).
Digital marketing is the most feasible and accessible option as a marketing strategy. This allows for a business and marketing strategist to track every cent which has been spent towards marketing. Traditional marketing tools such as billboards and flyers are unfortunately not as easy to measure.
After recognizing a marketing strategist the business should have a realistic budget in mind. It must be considered that there should be an annual marketing budget as well as a monthly amount clearly defined from the start. A suitable budget should be set for consumer accessibility through tools like social media (including platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn), and of course a company website and Google AdWords. It is vital for any size business to understand to keep a constant flow of communication, a continuous amount of expenses will be completed on a monthly investment forming part of a spread of twelve months. Multiple companies think to invest large amounts of funds into a three-month campaign is viable with big returns, except only from a twelve-month budget strategy is it practical to ensure returns. It is safe to say, it is advisable for a highly motivated company that wants to see long-term results, to almost never invest in short-term marketing plans, rather a minimum of twelve months to measure accurately and ensure maximum results are achieved.
For optimal results, a business should have a quarterly report that evaluates efforts and assess if the business’ goals and objectives are achieved.
