Are you a small or medium-sized business owner who wants to grow your business in 2022?If so, you’re in the right place.
In this article, we’re going to share with you 7 marketing strategies that you can use to grow your SME in the new year. But before we dive into that, let’s take a quick look at some numbers.
According to a report by Deloitte, small and medium-sized businesses account for 99% of all businesses in the EU. In addition, they generate around 85% of all new jobs in the region. And if that’s not enough, they also contribute to 60% of the EU’s GDP.
Clearly, SMEs are a vital part of the European economy. But despite their importance, they often struggle to compete with larger businesses. This is where marketing comes in. By using the right marketing strategies, you can level the playing field and compete with even the biggest businesses.
7 Marketing Strategies For SMEs To Grow
1. Make the most of social media marketing
Investing in social media marketing is one of the cheapest and most effective forms of marketing for small businesses.
To put it in other words, this can be done on your own if you’re willing to invest your time and energy in it. Moreover, if your company is growing, you can take advantage of social media management tools for your accounts.
Following are a few tips for managing social media for business purposes:
- Decide which platforms your target customers use.
- Collaborate with social media influencers. (using an influencer marketing platform, you can establish it successfully)
- Stick to your brand voice.
- Continue to create content to publish on social media networks regularly and on a regular schedule.
- Attract the audience’s attention with high-quality, impressive visuals.
- Place a link to your website on all your social media pages.
- Come up with techniques for driving social media traffic to your website.
- Tag relevant, popular hashtags to spread the word and reach more people.
- Track your campaigns using branded hashtags.
2. Establish a Customer Loyalty and Referral Program
This is an underutilized marketing technique that small businesses need to consider using. It may seem that these programs are only available to large businesses with a large customer base. That isn’t necessarily true, though.
It is one of the best ways for small businesses to generate leads from the perspective of their customers.
When was the last time you purchased from a brand without being prompted to do so by an advertisement or marketing campaign?
In fact, most people would consider checking it out if someone they trust recommended it.
This is why referral marketing can be so effective, and it’s exactly what’s encouraged by many firms that do this sort of thing. You can encourage existing customers to recommend your brand to their friends by providing rewards.
This is done by automating the process and using eCommerce tools for referral programs.
3. Make Analytics a Priority from the Start
Your marketing is much more effective when it’s data-driven, giving you a competitive edge that other companies do not have. When it comes to running a small business, you can’t afford to mess up. You can do that with the help of data and analytics.
The good thing about this is that you do not need to use an expensive platform. You can choose from a variety of free or affordable options.
Website analytics can be done for free on CRO tools platforms, as each one comes equipped with built-in analytics tools to get insights into the performance of your different landing pages.
4. Build an SEO-Friendly Website
It’s essential for a new company to have a website. This will give people access to what you have to offer. If you’ve already built a site that caters to both search engine optimization and conversion rates, you have already succeeded at the first stage of your challenge.
Prior to investing in other marketing tactics, you should focus on getting organic traffic to your website.
Consider these points:
- Your niche should be covered in good-quality content.
- Conduct thorough research on keywords for your content before building the site.
- Enrich all of your landing pages, titles, meta descriptions, etc. with keywords from your content.
- Structured data can improve SERP rankings for your website’s pages, and your SERP listings will distinguish themselves from the competition.
- Don’t neglect local SEO and long-tail keywords.
- Be sure to take into consideration technical SEO issues like page-load time and website design.
An SEO-friendly website requires a lot of work, but these tips should get you started.
5. Share Your Brand Story
Telling your brand story is a brilliant and effective way to connect with your target audience and establish a distinct brand identity.
A brand that has a great origin story is often more memorable and leaves a lasting impression. If you want people to be more interested in you, remind them of your brand story.
you should have a detailed “About Us” section on their website and a separate page for telling your brand story. Major milestones in the founders’ lives as well as in the history of the company are documented. Watching videos and looking at pictures to see the story come to life is an incredible experience.
6. Become an Expert in your Niche
Having a strong brand image can help you differentiate yourself from your competitors. Your marketing tactics may be similar to those of your competitors, so you need to come up with additional ways to stand out.
One such strategy to establish yourself in your field is by establishing yourself as an industry expert.
You can do that in a number of ways.
- You can start a blog and write informative and helpful content about topics in your field.
- Answer questions in community forums like Quora.
- Discuss relevant topics within your expertise on social media.
- Showcase your ideas by hosting webinars and podcasts about useful and relevant topics. Reach out to others and get in the public eye.
- Interviews and podcasts will begin to come your way as you begin to make waves in your industry. Whenever possible, make time to do things of this kind to improve your standing.
7. Make and Promote Explainer Videos
This strategy is especially important for new businesses, that have less of an established customer base, as well as any company that is aiming to boost its branding efforts.
Even a quality, outstanding business can find it hard to get off the ground in the beginning and get people interested in its brand. The challenge is even greater if you launch an innovative product and want people to understand how it works.
Video tutorials and explainer videos illustrate what your product does and how it can be used.
As a result, most businesses are no longer unable to explain their value to their target customers at the outset.
Conclusion
There are a number of marketing strategies that small and medium enterprises can use to grow. Some of these include investing in digital marketing, using social media, and developing a strong brand identity. By using these strategies, SMEs can reach a wider audience, build trust with customers, and increase sales.
