Tips for small businesses on how to build marketing performance and tie it to business revenue.
Most small businesses struggle with marketing as they don’t have the budget to compete with the larger brands in their industries. Luckily, there are many tools that can help small businesses achieve great marketing performance without having to spend a lot of money. In this article, we’ll go over some of the best ways you can improve your marketing performance without breaking the bank!
1) Understanding marketing performance
You probably know the old saying that “half of all marketing dollars are wasted; we just don’t know which half”. Understanding what does and doesn’t work in your marketing mix is important for any business, but especially important for small businesses with limited resources. Ultimately, it comes down to revenue: Does each channel provide revenue growth? If not, why do you continue to use it? Is there a better use of funds that could result in more revenue? Good business intelligence and web analytics is critical before you set off on the marketing journey.
2) Improving the efficiency of small business marketing
It’s important for small businesses to identify which channels are most effective for them, because not all small businesses have unlimited budgets. For example, paid search campaigns and social media advertising might be an excellent fit for some industries, but less efficient in others. This is where having a good understanding of what works best in your industry comes into play. Focus on those areas that deliver results based on the previously cited business intelligence whether it’s organic search or email marketing.
3) Marketing Performance vs Revenue Performance
A lot of companies start off with small budgets for marketing and think if they get a little bit of leads that they’ll be able to go to sales and close a deal. The truth is that most businesses don’t have a scalable process or strategy in place which means their marketers are leaving money on the table (and usually not even realizing it). Marketing drives revenue, but revenue drives profit. It’s important to show what your team is doing each month and tie it back to real numbers.
4) How do I increase my revenue?
As a small business owner, it’s easy to become focused on revenue. However, there are other factors that can impact a business’ financial health, such as cost of goods sold and expenses. A company’s marketing efforts play an important role in performance. Effective campaigns deliver brand awareness; increase website traffic; boost sales; and retain customers for future purchases.
5) Boosting website traffic through content and search engine optimization (SEO)
If there’s one thing we’ve learned in recent years, it’s that content is king—and nothing is kinglier than search-engine-optimized content. If your site has an adequate amount of interesting, useful and high-quality content, it will rank higher in Google search results and drive more traffic to your website. Adding relevant keywords to posts so that they appear for searches related to them (in addition to SEO) drives even more traffic.
6) Small Business Paid Search – Google AdWords
Small business owners should consider setting up a Google AdWords account to help with their search engine marketing (SEM) efforts. AdWords is a simple, cost-effective way to drive traffic to your website and increase sales without incurring too much additional expense. It’s also one of Google’s main sources of revenue, so they want to make it as easy as possible for advertisers. For more information on how to set up an account and use these tools, reach out to a Facets team member!
7) Small Business Email Marketing – Why every business needs it!
While business social media pages and websites are important, email marketing is arguably one of the most effective—and certainly cheapest—ways to reach customers. Small businesses owners who’ve embraced email know that its widespread popularity means they have a wide-open playing field; it’s just as easy for them to catch customer attention with a compelling email campaign as it is for big businesses. Simple automated campaigns such as remarketing lists for cold leads or pinging a fresh customer with a welcome message can build brand loyalty and revenues in an easy, cost-effective way.