You are a small business, but your dreams aren’t small. You sell the same products or services as your multinational competitor, but your audience is getting swallowed up by them. We feel you. Nevertheless, you can create a mark and compete with the big guns in your industry if you implement some smart marketing techniques.
But first, know your competition. A thorough competitive research will help you identify your brand’s value proposition and should give you answers to these questions:
- Who are your top 10 competitors that you want to race ahead of?
- How are they different in their offerings?
- Have they created a strong digital presence? If so, what mediums are they focusing on?
- What is their pricing structure like?
- What marketing strategies are they using to reach their targeted audience?
Once you have performed a detailed competitive analysis and have identified their strengths and weaknesses, you are in a better position to create better business strategies than them. Listed out in this article are some significant strategies that you can implement without spending thousands of dollars competing with the big guns in your industry.
Choose the right Domain Name
In the present world of technology, a business’s domain name is as important as its brand name. It can make or break a deal for you. A good domain name improves your brand recognition.
- Make sure you choose a domain name that reflects your brand name.
- Choose “.com” domain extension. Not only does it help better in SEO but also a .com makes you appear like a bigger company than a domain extension as a “.club” or a “.biz”.
- Keep it short and simple. Don’t stuff in too many keywords. It might help you with SEO but could create a bad first impression with your customers.
- Avoid numbers, hyphens, funny spellings, and duplicate words in your domain name.
Invest in a Quality Website
A good quality website doesn’t always have to be an expensive website. However, your website is the face of your company. Investing in a high-quality website is never going to let you down. A compelling website can help project your small business as a one that your client can trust.
- Your website design should be elegant and minimalistic. Avoid bright colors and make sure it is free from clutter. Avoid cookie-cutter templates. Choose a design that defines your brand.
- Your visitors should not take too long to get the information they are looking for from your website. An intuitive navigation and easy to read content are key to a compelling user experience.
- Make your website SEO friendly right from the planning phase of your website build.
- Your website MUST be responsive.
Pick the right Content Management System (CMS)
But first, why do you need a CMS you ask? Good content helps you build healthy relationships and relationships are built on trust. When you churn out fresh and targeted content, you are building a returning audience. A good CMS enables you:
- To create web pages for various marketing campaigns easily, even if you’re a non-technical user. With minimal to no-coding, you can create and alter visual components of a website.
- To update and modify content as and when you please without depending on a developer.
- To easily collaborate with different users of your business who can add, edit, or modify content on the go.
- To increase your website’s security. With an open-source CMS like Drupal, you can have a huge community of developers overlooking all security vulnerabilities.
- To save costs on website maintenance. You don’t need to call a developer every time you need to add or modify content.
Focus on SEO
Search Engine Optimization is one of the most inexpensive ways to make your presence felt and race ahead of your competition. Did you know that 97% users learn about local businesses online than through any other medium? It is particularly important your business shows up in the top 10 results at least when your audience is looking for your products or services. How can you ensure a better SEO ranking?
- Get help from an SEO expert to ensure your website is built keeping in mind all the SEO best practices.
- Create fresh content regularly. Focus on user experience.
- Choose a good CMS like Drupal that can not only help you in creating content easily but also provides you with various SEO tools and techniques to boost your SEO ranking.
- Make sure you use the Google My Business page to help list your business in local results as well as improve your search ranking.
Have a Social Media Presence?
One of the best and quickest ways to reach your audience is to establish connections with them through various social media platforms. Because that’s where you will find them. You can choose to target all social media platforms or only those where your target audience are lurking around.
- If you provide B2B services or products, choose a platform like LinkedIn (or sometimes Twitter) to maximize your efforts. If you’re a B2C service/products provider, leverage platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest.
- Connect personally with your users by responding back to them when they reach out to you. Analyze what kind of posts have worked for you and have got the highest engagement from your audience. Create posts around similar topics.
- Post content regularly but try not to bombard your page with too much content.
- Leverage social media advertising as it is not very expensive, and it allows you to choose your audience type.
Final Thoughts
Considering the work-from-anywhere future (and present) and the world of technology we live in, the lines between small and big businesses are slowly blurring out. Small businesses now have tons of opportunities to showcase their work and build trust with their audience. What matters most is the results, the goodwill and the way you treat your customers. Consistency is key to building and maintaining your brand. As the great philosopher and politician, Confucius, says – “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you don’t stop”. Keep dreaming big and thinking smart.