Important Things Every Company Needs To Know About Marketing

When it comes to starting your own business there are many different things you should consider. From getting a great sales tactic to employing the best accountants to keep you on track – all of these things will perform crucial roles in your company.

One particular important section of your business that you need to nail down early is your marketing. Marketing is how you will present yourself to the world and it will form your reputation as well as help you reach a wider audience. Ensuring that your marketing efforts are the best they can be will make a huge impact on your business and today we want to discuss good marketing.

There are a lot of spinning plates involved in marketing, but today we want to talk about some of the key elements as well as things you should know about this key aspect of your business.

Social media is crucial

Social media is something that far too many companies don’t pay enough attention to. Older companies in particular might think that social media is a waste of time, however social media is a platform that people use every single day and there is a whole world of possibility there for new followers and customers. When coming up with your social media plan make sure to use social media to its full advantage and this will allow you to succeed. For example here are some of the social platforms and the type of content you’d want to share on each:

Facebook – video content and photo content, joining local groups through your business account can also be useful here to gain some notoriety in your community
Instagram – photographs, this should be designed and planned out beforehand to look as good as it can, there are many great accounts you can draw ideas from
LinkedIn – press releases and company news – this is a business network hence keep the content simple on here
Twitter – press requests and promotions – Twitter is useful for getting in touch with journalists to do press coverage about new products or projects you may have
TikTok – short form videos – TikTok can be useful for demonstrating new products and also engaging with your followers through fun content. Sites like Tikdroid.com are a great resource for anyone looking to gain a following online.

You can outsource it

The first thing you should know as a business is that you don’t have to hire your marketing team in-house. A lot of the time it will be more cost effective for you, particularly as a small business starting out, to hire a digital marketing agency to help you reach your audience and gain traction. By handing off your marketing efforts to a professional agency you will be taking the pressure off yourself and ensuring that every element of your marketing is running smoothly and done in the right way.

SEO is key

When you come to try your hand at marketing, it is important to delve into the world of SEO. Search Engine Optimisation is one of the key elements of marketing that should run through every piece of content you create as well as through your ad campaigns. The basis behind SEO is to help your website come up in search engine results when a relevant keyword is searched. The way to achieve great SEO for your website is to add keywords into the backend of the website as well as within the content on every page. For example if you are a pet cafe, you can add this keyword throughout your website, and when someone searches for a pet cafe your website is more likely to rank on their search engine. It is a simple concept but one that is ever developing and one that will truly impact your business.

Content comes in many forms

One of the keys to great marketing is the sharing of content across the web as well as in other forms such as books, brochures, and leaflets. Your content will be something visual for your followers to look at and read and this is what will get them engaged in your brand and hopefully make them want to do business with you.

When many of us think about content the first thing we might think of is articles. However, articles are not the only type of content you can create for your business. Here are some of the different types of content that will come together to form the visual of your business:

Website content
Articles
Social posts
Photographs
Videos
Brochures
Informational flyers
Emails
Ad campaigns
Product descriptions

Once you have started to make all of the types of content above and keep them to a certain tone of voice, this will help your business to thrive and grow.

Engagement is important

When trying to market for your brand it is so important to consider the engagement of the people who see your content. This is why when creating content you need to consider readability, information, and interest. If you aren’t providing anything exciting for your audience to look at, they won’t engage with you and this can harm your lead generation.

Your website needs to be accessible

Your website is the window to your business and it is often the first place people will go after hearing about your company. This being said, you need to ensure that your website harbours the right tone of voice, atmosphere, and colour scheme that denotes who you are as a business. It is also important when creating a great website that you consider running it through a tool called PageSpeed Insights and this will let you know if there are issues such as broken links or slow loading pages. Ensure that you optimise your website for the user and this will help you to gain some traction as a business.

Apps are useful

Apps can be a new pathway to your customer that you never had before. By developing an app to sell your products, you will be constantly in your customers pocket and they will be able to access your business and your products whenever they want and wherever they are. This is such an important thing to consider and you could drastically increase your lead generation by having an app associated with your company.

Hubspot is an essential tool

Hubspot is a marketing and sales tool that can connect your social media platforms, website, and email campaigns all in one place. When trying to improve lead generation and keep track of sales this is crucial because it will allow you to see where your leads are coming from and how they filter through to sales. The great thing about hubspot is that it also provides training classes on how to use the service to its full ability to ensure that you are getting the best out of the tool. If your marketing team is fairly small and you are looking to grow, hubspot can be a great way to start streamlining your marketing efforts and prevent you having to pay for lots of different services.

Graphic design sells

As a small business it is incredibly important for you to invest in your graphic design. The difference between a logo you have made yourself and one made by a graphic designer can be seen straight away and investing in your branding can be make or break for your business. Make sure to put your best foot forward and ensure that you have a stunning brand for people to get to know from the get go.

Target audience research is important

Target audience research is something you need to heavily focus on when you start out with marketing. By finding out who your target audience is and how best to reach them, you will be able to formulate a plan of content, ad campaigns, and emails to target these people and ensure they see your products. For example if you are a fashion brand, you might be targeting young women – and hence you will want to share content on platforms that young women dominate – Instagram and TikTok. By creating content that is geared towards these two platforms, you will be able to reach the people you need to and your chances of sales are much greater.

Hashtags aren’t everything

Hashtags used to be the most important thing in social media, and people would put as many as possible after a post to reach the right people. Hashtags can still be fairly useful when creating content, however you also want to use hashtags in a smart way and do some hashtag research. The optimal number of hashtags for Instagram for example is 8. This will be some for your product, some for the industry, some description, and perhaps location too if this applies.

UTM codes allow tracking

Always use UTM codes when you share links online. A UTM code is a small code you can input at the end of a URL and it allows you to track when someone clicks this link. It is useful for specific campaigns but also for general use too.

Author Profile

Scott Baber: Senior Managing editor

Manages incoming enquiries and advertising. Based in London and very sporty. Worked news and sports desks in local paper after graduating.

Email Scott@MarkMeets.com