How to Advertise Your Business

Looking for advertisement ideas for how to advertise your business? The following tips can help you develop a marketing plan that puts your business in front of those who matter the most: your target market.

The good news? When it comes to marketing your business, the Internet has leveled the playing field for the small business owner. Today’s small businesses, including home businesses, are finding success with online marketing strategies. And many do this even when operating on a shoestring marketing budget.

How to Market Your Business Online

Small business owners who learn and use online marketing strategies often see a good return for their efforts. And if you have enough of a marketing budget, you can tap into marketing opportunities that were virtually impossible for small businesses even 10 years ago.

Whether you want to learn how to market your business online or you’re interested in finding out how to advertise your business digitally, we’ve got you covered in the sections below.

Business Website

Customers expect businesses to have websites that work well and look good; this is true even for local businesses.

Think of your business website as your piece of Internet real estate. Whether you want to promote your latest sale, highlight new inventory, or even advertise job postings, your website can be the ideal way to reach your company’s goals.

And building a website has never been easier. In addition to the many companies and freelancers available to meet your web design needs, there are also DIY website tools for those who prefer a more hands-on approach.

Create a Business Blog

A business blog can also be a valuable tool to help you reach both existing and potential customers. Using a blogging platform such as WordPress, you can easily add new content to your site.

What are the advantages of maintaining a business blog? By updating your blog consistently, you can:

• Make your site more attractive to search engines.
• Build a sense of community.
• Increase trust and credibility within your target market.

Search Engine Optimization

No matter how enticing your site is, you’ll get nowhere with it if Google doesn’t direct people your way.

Why Google? The search engine giant captures the vast majority of search engine traffic. It makes sense then for your website to be as visible as possible when it comes to Google’s algorithms. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. SEO strategies, such as using important keywords, help put your business website on Google’s radar.

You can find many SEO resources online if you want to take a DIY approach to optimize your site. And if you’d rather focus your time on running your business? There are also SEO companies and consultants available to meet every need and budget.

Google My Business

Your Google Business Profile is another place you can apply SEO techniques. Business profiles show up in both local search results and on Google Maps, and they are invaluable for directing people to your business.

Google also offers Google My Business, a free service that helps business owners to optimize their business profiles. You can use Google My Business to manage your business profile by implementing local SEO strategies. It also provides local search analytics to help you better understand your target market.

Paid Search

If you have a deeper marketing budget, Google’s Paid Search offers a more immediate return than SEO-based strategies. With Google Paid Search, businesses run ad campaigns targeting specific keywords. When a prospective customer enters one of these keywords as a search term, Google places relevant ads at the top of the search results.

Unlike traditional ad campaigns, Google ads are pay-per-click. This means businesses with smaller budgets can still use Google ad campaigns to promote their businesses.

Social Media

Even if you don’t personally use social media, your business can benefit from having a social media presence. According to Pew Research, 72% of Americans use some form of social media. For most businesses, then, social media is the place to reach new and existing customers.

The good news is, social media marketing doesn’t mean you need to be on every social media platform. Focus instead on the platform where your target market can be found. The primary social media platforms include Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Each of these platforms tends to service a particular demographic.

Each social media network also offers small businesses the opportunity to extend their reach through the use of ads. With ad services like Facebook Ads, you can promote your business to an even larger audience than through organic posts alone.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is the social media take on the more traditional celebrity endorsement. Influencers are people who have large followings on social media. With influencer marketing, companies can leverage these followings to promote their goods and services.

Influencer marketing is not a marketing strategy that will work for every business. But for specific markets, it can be an effective technique. For example, according to GWI, food, fashion, and beauty/personal care are the most popular types of influencer content.

Email Marketing

Despite what you might have heard to the contrary, email marketing is far from dead. According to Content Marketing Institute, 81% of marketers use email, and 31% specifically use email marketing to nurture leads.

The enterprising small business can do many things with email marketing:

• Drive sales
• Promote special events
• Build trust
• Conduct market research

Customer Reviews

Customer reviews are another important tool in the digital marketing toolbox. Whether customers leave their reviews directly on your site, on your Google Business Profile page, or on a review site like Yelp, good reviews help to signal trust to potential customers. And one of the best ways to get reviews is to simply ask current customers to leave a review.

How to Promote Your Business Offline

As you can see, online marketing dominates most small business marketing plans today. Despite this, offline marketing can still play a key role in a business’s marketing strategy. This is particularly true for local businesses.

Offline marketing can also help you grow connections within your neighborhood and build a community for your customers. The following tips offer ideas on how to promote your business offline.

Network with Others

Networking offline can be an invaluable part of your local marketing strategy. Face-to-face communication is often more powerful than connecting digitally. Attending events and conferences gives you the chance to promote your business using a more personal touch.

Direct Mail

For some businesses, direct mail can be an effective marketing method. With a direct mail campaign, you can zero in on a very specific geographic range. For example, realtors who have sold a house in a particular neighborhood can use direct mail to target other homeowners in the area who may be thinking about putting their houses on the market.

Organize Events

Organizing local events can be another effective form of local offline marketing. In addition to promoting your goods or services, an organized event can also help build local brand awareness for your business in more impactful ways than a digital event could.

With so many different ways to promote your business, it has never been easier for the small business owner to market their business. And you don’t have to be hindered by a tight marketing budget either. Taking a few key steps, such as building a business website and taking control of your Google Business Profile, can provide you with a solid foundation for a successful marketing plan.

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