As businesses re-open, in the UK at least, and we gain some sense of who can work in a version of normality, and who can travel without being housed in an airport hotel for an eternity - then companies will be looking for ways to get in front of customers again.
And do so cheaply.
After the year of lockdown, many organisations will have struggled for revenue and may not have over-flowing marketing budgets. There’s the conundrum of needing to invest in your brand to generate revenues - while needing the revenues to have the cash to invest.
Before you even start that process, you should think through the basics of what you are offering, so that your messaging and targeting is right.
What’s unique about your business?
You know your industry, but do you know your place within it? What makes you different from your competitors? Why should your customers choose you ahead of others? It’s a key part of your planning to work out what to highlight as your best qualities.
If you are in, for example, the ELT industry - is it the style of your teaching that makes you stand out? Or the wider experience? If you’re in tourism, is it the location? Or do you teach new things there too? Working that out means you have a better idea as to why people should be interested in you - but do you know who they are?
What’s your demographic?
Many companies believe that everyone should love everything that they do - but it doesn’t often work that way. The issue here is narrowing down your audience - from ‘everyone’ to a much more specific persona which includes age, gender, income, habits and so on. Included in that detail is a sense of what digital platforms they use. Because that’s where you’re going to start…
Organic social media
So once you’ve worked out what platforms your audience is on, then start to connect with them on social media. Pick your platforms according to your audience’s preferences, rather than your own. If your customers are on TikTok, then grit your teeth and get on there.
To avoid cost, just post and grow your audience organically.
- Be interesting, so that people will share your posts.
- Follow key people - those with the audiences that you want
- Be generous in re-tweeting/re-posting/liking posts from others so that they become aware of your presence
- Use hashtags to attract the others talking about what you’re talking about
- Post regularly, but not obsessively
- And make the posts look great: use tools like Canva for editing graphics, or Snapseed for editing photos.
Get hold of your Google My Business profile
Google my Business is especially key if you operate from a physical location. With it being a Google product, it appears (in the right hand channel) for searches for your business and gives the key details - opening hours, contact details, location and so on.
Keep that up-to-date and you’ve a guaranteed profile if people are searching for you.
Get the SEO sorted
If your potential customers are searching for your services, and don’t know that you provide them, then the Google profile isn’t worth much.
Instead, you’ll need to up your search engine optimisation game for your products and services. To do it properly, we’d strongly advise you get in touch. It’s an investment, but it’ll take the guesswork out of your keyword research, it’ll sort out the technical issues on your website that stop you being found and it’ll help with the ongoing content creation to make sure that you’ve got a bank of findable content to put you on the front page of a Google search.
Engage your audience with blog posts
There are different types of content which can drive your profile, your social media and your SEO and one of the simpler ways to drive all of the above is with a blog section on your website.
It can be difficult to find a space in which you’re not repeating the service messages of the rest of the site while also saying something which is both interesting and relevant. We can help you with the planning of that, and help support a content stream which can be the driver of your digital profile.
Try email marketing
If you like the idea of a fancy customer relationship marketing programme, via the likes of Salesforce - but you don’t have the budget for it - then you can dabble with simple email newsletters.
A basic package from the likes of Mailchimp will allow you to send emails to relatively small numbers of contacts for free, which means you can test the effectiveness of the process before committing to a more sophisticated paid-for version. And there’s no need to be daunted by any potential nerdery - most of these beginner versions offer drag-and-drop email templates, so no need for any serious skills. Simply make sure you’ve a contact form on your website that offers people the chance to opt-in to your newsletters (not pre-ticked so that you don’t fall foul of GDPR rules).
Do some PR
If you’re re-opening, got a new product or have something (useful) to say, then try and get yourself some PR. A basic press release to local, national or specialist media will get your message out, get some in-bound links to your site and get some interest and awareness moving.
It’s an ‘every now and again’ thing but it can help put you in front of audiences who may not have realised that you have exactly what they need.
All this can help get things moving again, but they won’t, in all honesty, get you to the stratosphere. But you shouldn’t spend on media and advertising until you’ve got these basics delivered and see how far they can take you.
This work should set the benchmark for inbound enquiries or customer visits. So when you do start spending more heavily, at least you’ll have a higher sense of where the value might be.
Get this work done, and then re-set your ambitions. Talk to us if you want to know more.
