Best Marketing Strategy For Small Business: A Happy Customer
A happy customer is the best marketing strategy of all.
Hello,
Observing small businesses always fascinate me. Many a time, these businesses teach us far more practical lessons than structured classrooms. Last month I got a chance to interact with a florist in Budapest. The way she dealt with the recent lockdown and managed the inventory of her small shop left me amazed and inspired. If small business case studies interest you, you may check more about her here.
Nothing better than learning from the real doers.
We are at the end of this 10-post series of ‘Marketing For Small Businesses And Solopreneurs'. Well, it’s definitely not an end for posts on small businesses. That will continue as and when I will have something worth sharing.
But this series was planned with a fixed objective in mind. My current nature of work gives me a chance to interact with lots of startups and passion-economy professionals. Often, they manage their own marketing and have a need to understand only a slice of it. The internet is overloaded with content. At times overwhelming and confusing to the ones who are new to any subject. When they ask for post-session reading materials, it has been a challenge for me to refer them to a single source, including my own blog that has hundreds of posts on product, and marketing. Neither they have the time, nor the need to go through the subject in detail. This series has been an effort towards solving that problem. A set of ten topics that can make them familiar with the basics and leave them with practical insights.
So far, we have discussed positioning, messaging, defining your target segment, communication, channels, frequency, marketing metrics, marketing trends, and cheatsheet for different content formats.
In this post, I would like to share a few quick tips that work for small businesses. These are time-tested and proven. The only thing that we need to be cautious about is the implementation:
Use Google My Business. It helps a lot in search and traffic. Also, digital leaders like Google and Facebook provide lots of free resources and training to small businesses. Make the best use of them. I would particularly recommend you to check - Grow With Google and Facebook for Small Business.
Ride on the current influencer wave. Influencer marketing in some or the other form has existed since forever. However, with the existing trend in digital, where media to a large extent is being controlled by independent content creators, it’s easier and more democratic to implement it. The difficult task is to find the influencers who deliver results. Instead of just followers, check the post engagement rate of the influencers. Be clear about your ask. And if there is money involved, check the actual deliverables the influencer is willing to provide - traffic, leads, conversion. You can also try to find micro-influencers who would be willing to do it for less or on barter. The impact might not be the same, but at least the word will start spreading. And you will get user-generated content to share on your own pages. If you would like to read more on this, you may read one of my posts or watch this video.
Focus on returning customers. A lot of time, when we are new to the business, we put in a substantial effort in generating new leads and acquiring new customers. There is nothing wrong with it. In fact, you should focus on expanding your database. However, it’s equally important to focus on the reasons that you can give your existing customers to return to you. How can you do it? 1. Make their first purchase experience flawless 2. Reach out to them proactively to see if they need any help 3. Seek their feedback and suggestions 4. Engage with them through recommendations, and special offers. A returning customer is like an asset for small businesses.
Create sharing incentives. A customer talking about their positive experience with your brand to others is ten times worthier than what you say about yourself. It builds the brand value and creates social proof. It would help if you can incentivize them for their effort. A well-crafted referral program goes a long way in increasing your business reach. The key is incentivizing the referrer also apart from the referee.
Showcase the user-generated content. It’s a struggle for small businesses to continuously create content. It’s time-consuming and good content creation requires effort. To keep your marketing calendar going on consistently, it’s always a good idea to include some user-generated content in it. Testimonials, success stories, client photos and videos using your product, feedback - all of these can add variety to your marketing feed. More importantly, they drive the brand's trust.
If implementing these seem too much, let me simplify it a bit for you If you take a closer look, points 3,4, and 5 are connected. These can only happen when you have happy customers.
Instead of trying to do too many things, and spreading your marketing effort thin, it would help to focus on your existing customers. Create a delightful experience for them and let them spread the word about you. It will work. Like magic. And organic growth will follow.
On that note, wish you a happy first week of the new financial year. May your business grow.
Cheers,
Kanupriya
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*Hope this series was helpful to you as a small business owner or solopreneur. If you think it has helped you understand the basics of marketing, it would be great, if you can spread the word about it in your network. This will help me increase my reach :). And if you would like me to cover any topic in particular, you may drop your suggestions here. Thank you in advance.
If you’re looking to start this 10-post series, you may do it with the first post here. Links to further posts are available at the end of each post.