For small business marketing, engagement with customers is key, according to industry expert Elizabeth Kraus. In a Business 2 Community post, she said engagement will be an important part in a marketing campaign's success this year, because of the large amount of businesses using marketing emails and other areas of online marketing.
Engaging with a new customer successfully is a three-step process. Kraus said SMBs first need to find the prospect, then hook them with a product or service so that they form some loyalty to the brand. After establishing a sense of brand loyalty, businesses should encourage the customer to then spread the word about the company to friends and family.
"The interactions that will engage people – get them to want to do business with you, to want to do business with you again, to want to tell others about you, and to want to do business only with you (when it comes to the products and services you provide) – these types of interactions will be those where alignment of emotional connection and relevance (what you have is actually something they need) occurs," Kraus said.
Scott Gerber, founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council, recently compiled tips for small business marketing professionals looking to engage customers. The tips, which were featured on Mashable, included putting the spotlight on customers, keeping in touch with customers via tools such as Skype and making people in the business accessible.
Things such as content, talking to clients and making sure a website is fresh seem so simple when discussing small business marketing, and James Debono said on Business 2 Community that they all can be huge lifts for a marketing campaign. He said becoming an expert can be the best way to write content that helps keep people interested.
"Write articles and create 'how to' videos and you’ll be amazed at the results – you will reach a wider audience, your trust factor will increase; it opens your business up to joint ventures with other businesses and ultimately more sales," Debono said.
Other obvious, yet useful, tips include not neglecting current clients – as Debono said they are the lifeblood of any company – and not diving into social media. Social media provides SMBs with a good way to communicate with customers, see what people are talking about and find out who is interested in the brand.
Beth Goldstein, president of Marketing Edge Consulting Group, said in Businessweek to make sure to use data from social media in useful ways. Businesses should find ways to better understand the new, evolving needs of customers and convey that in campaigns and marketing emails.
Small businesses are always on the hunt for better ways to get clients in the sales pipeline, and growth strategist Ryan Caligiuri said there are some good ways to generate leads that can be very efficient for businesses.
In a special for Toronto's The Globe and Mail, Caligiuri said businesses should always focus on tactics that will bring back a good return on investment, such as marketing automation and CRM software. He also said money should be spent on tactics that will allow people to start connecting and creating relationships with those in the marketpalce.
"Rather than stick up an image advertisement, focus on tactics where you can offer direction to participants and kick-start relationships," Caligiuri said. "Such tactics could include direct-response advertising, special events, seminars or webinars."
Many small business marketers have found that mixing up their strategies and using a variety of tactics will net them the best return on their investment. However, versatility may not be enough, as marketers need to make sure they are frequently testing their campaigns to ensure they are getting the positive results they expect.
Entrepreneur.com said marketing businesses need to take advantage of social sharing buttons by asking themselves if they would share a link or email before creating it, and making sure they express themselves and their opinions clearly to generate conversation.
Great CRM software or marketing automation can only go so far without a well-built email marketing database, and email marketing expert Tal Nathan writes on ClickZ that lists face challenges such as spam complaints, undeliverable addresses and more every day. He said there are ways marketing executives can grow lists sensibly and see success.
Nathan said businesses should frequently use their website to have sign up opportunities for email, capture email addresses in the real world and at call centers, find people who will refer friends and leverage social media to enhance their lists.
"As an email marketer, you've probably been required to promote your company's Facebook fan page," Nathan said. "It's a great idea, and it's time that your social media counterpart reciprocates with kindness. In addition to featuring your email registration prominently on your fan page, you can also ask them to periodically post an appeal to sign up, whether out of the goodness of their hearts or in return for some benefit."
The Small Company Blog said small business marketing professionals should remember to be ethical as well when growing a list, by doing things such as trading knowledge for contact information, encouraging emails to be passed along and assigning someone to clear inactive recipients from the list.
When Tommi Wolfe, president and founder of The Startup Expert, realized her marketing emails weren't resonating with the intended audience, she tried to focus on a new plan, according to MarketingSherpa. The new plan got her coaching business a 600 percent increase in revenue
Wolfe first collected emails from everyone she met who had any kind of interest, then made a very clear survey via email to all of them with a good subject line. She gave recipients an an e-book as a reward for filling out the survey and said she not only got good results, but an increase in business. According to MarketingSherpa, Wolfe saw an 8.1 percent clickthrough rate, a 48 percent open rate and an 81 percent clickthrough rate for those who opened the emails, garnering her a 600 percent revenue increase.
"My biggest surprise was the high interest in generating passive income, which is not a great money-making technique unless you are already very established with a big list," Wolfe said to the news source. "This knowledge gave me an opportunity to get real and honest with clients about their misconceptions."
Lyris said small business marketing professionals looking to build relevance in email need to have good content, personalization, email list segmentation and a functional unsubscribe program. All of these can be used to help a business grow.
While the litany of online social media options may at first be intimidating to small business marketing departments, James Debono writes on Business 2 Community that businesses need to get into social media sooner or later, as it is not going away.
Debono said using social media is important for small businesses because it allows them to see what people online think of their business, gives them access to a larger audience, thereby leveling the playing field with bigger companies, and lets businesses build brands the way they want to build them up. He suggests getting a website to link to social media, listening to what customers say before speaking up and having a good strategy going in.
"Like anything in business, if you jump in without setting out a map for success, then social media can eat away at your time and your money, meaning there may be very little return for your investment," Debono said. "Be clear about your objectives from the outset, if you are just getting started then a high-level strategy will suffice which you can adapt as you go along."
Sales and marketing officials need to be available in a social media setting and interact with their customers, according to Social Media Examiner. The website said buying into the ideals of social media giant Facebook can help businesses build relationships with a large number of customers.
With the rise of cross-channel marketing comes the rise of marketing emails, according to Econsultancy's 2012 Email Marketing Platform Buyer's Guide. The report, which said the market grew by 15.5 percent in 2011, said multi-channel marketing can be a big part of helping to grow an email program.
"With the rise of social media, the talk of the industry at the beginning of 2011 was all about social media being the death of email," according to Henry Hyder Smith, managing director of Adestra. "The market has actually grown and the two channels have grown to complement each other. Email marketing has not lost its place in the marketing communications mix, but it has and will have to evolve to fit into the changing times."
Econsultancy said the good news about email and social media's ability to bring in return on investment during hard times is that it gives the marketing department more of a budget even during hard times.
One area sales and marketing executives at companies and agencies may want to work on is designing emails specifically for phones and tablets. Only 24 percent of agencies make emails for phones while only 14 percent of companies do. For tablets, each only designs 9 percent. About 84 percent of companies design for neither and 75 percent of agencies don't pattern emails for either.
