1. Keep your target audience in mind

2. Create compelling content

3. Make sure your website is user-friendly

4. Use social media to your advantage

5. Analyze your data

6. A/B test your campaigns

7. Take advantage of marketing tools

8. Don't forget about mobile users

The answer to the questions is simple really. You need to promote your business more in order to attract the maximum number of customers or clients. Adverts are a very effective way to generate massive awareness to a targeted audience likely to require your goods or services. 

If you're in business to make money you need customers and lots of them. Once you have a steady trickle of customers, how do you find a way to turn that trickle into a stream and then a torrent?

Over the long term, customer acquisition is the biggest challenge facing most businesses.

The best practice is to settle on a small number of marketing channels that meet your customer acquisition goals and execute those properly, either directly or through an agency partner. If a channel looks like it isn't working, drop it and try something else.

An example of a few channels includes Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Twitter Ads, Instagram Ads, AdWords e.t.c. Each channel has different rules.

Your business can also generate more customers by using SEO keywords in your website content and on your social media platforms. By doing this, you will be able to reach people who are actively searching for the products or services that you offer. In addition, you should make sure that your website is easy to navigate and contains relevant information that potential customers would be looking for.

Another way to generate more customers is through word-of-mouth marketing. This can be done by providing excellent customer service and creating a positive brand image. If your current customers are happy with your business, they will be more likely to recommend you to others.

You can also encourage word-of-mouth marketing by offering incentives such as discounts or coupons for referrals. You can create a referral program by offering something of value to new customers who bring in their friends. For example, you can offer a coupon that gives new customers 10 or 20 percent off their first purchase if they bring in five or ten of their friends.

Do you need a business loan to grow your business and get the resources you need? Our team of experts can help you get the funding you need. 

It's a digital world out there. Participating and taking advantage of this digital age is not an option, but rather, a MUST for all small businesses. 

With more than 4.5 billion plus and growing  daily Internet users, the opportunity for small business to reach their target market has not only, never been better, its also allowed SME's to compete with the big enterprises and do so cost effectively. 

Creating consistent & growing revenue is possible with the right business systems in place and an understanding of business development principles.  

Randomly posting on social media does not even come close to being classified as a lead generation system, let alone, reliably produces quantifiable results that grow your business revenues consistently. Even consistently posting on social media is only one part of a solid lead generation strategy and system.  

Unfortunately, most self proclaimed marketing experts as well as companies out there over promise and under-deliver with in the majority of cases, no accountability and certainly no alignment of interests. 

The world is a big place and there are innumerable businesses all looking to find and secure their markets. When corporations have huge sums to invest in technology and outreach to customers, it can feel like there’s no place for the smaller organisation.

But this doesn’t have to be the case. There are many ways that small and medium-sized businesses can compete on the biggest stage – if they embrace and use technology to its fullest extent.

We’ll look at some ways your SME can harness these possibilities and cultivate a global outlook.

Mobile is Key

It’s obvious to all that mobile is now the pre-eminent platform for most tasks in life. This is especially true when it comes to the modern consumer’s shopping habits. Yet, many smaller businesses don’t plan and implement any kind of mobile strategy.

This means, at the very least, ensuring all business sites are mobile-optimised. If a potential customer must wait for a slow site to load, they will simply go elsewhere. On a deeper level, there is nothing stopping smaller firms from embracing the use of apps. A well-designed app for researching and buying products is not the exclusive preserve of big business. Integration of Augmented Reality, for example, can place products in a user’s home before they buy.

Digital Advertising

It’s no longer enough to sprinkle a few keywords and product names on a site and expect it to appear anywhere near the top of a search engine ranking. Targeted solutions like Schema – a way for search engines to more accurately find search results for users – are the future. Understanding and using these new methodologies is the forefront of SEO along with practises such as local search optimisation, mobile and voice search.

Smarter Working

The old model of doing business is firmly out of style. Today, there are ways to streamline almost any task and redirect efforts to more pressing areas. Workers do not need to be in the office to contribute fully. Additionally, smaller businesses are in the enviable position of being able to make quick, strategic changes to everything from how they handle pay roll to marketing. The tools are there to streamline, hand off and prioritise tasks which, in turn, enables businesses to turn their attention to the areas that need focus.

Social Media

One of the best things about social media is that it represents a potential audience of billions for a business. And what’s more, a fresh and authentic approach can pay real dividends when it comes to engaging new or existing customers. Aside from traditional advertising on social media platforms like Facebook, venues like Instagram and Twitter can build a real connection between customers and businesses. It all depends on the time you invest and how much you care. If you take the time to cultivate a quality presence, the rewards are there. 

If you are an avid Instagram user and happen to follow a number of different retail outlets on the social media site, you’ve probably noticed a new feature that has appeared recently.

Embracing the potential for Instagram to be a key platform for retail outlets, brands are now able to tag products in their posts, which will direct customers to purchase pages.

Leading retail brands like ASOS, Topshop and Urban Outfitters already make massive use of the site, but will this new feature allow them to step things up another level? Read on to find out how it can.

It will increase efficiency for customers

Prior to the introduction of this new feature, customers might have found something that they liked on a retailer’s Instagram, but then they would have to leave the platform, open up the store’s app or visit their website for shop. Directing customers in this way makes for a smooth transition between company websites and social media and will also improve the user experience.

It drives traffic back to your site

Even if customers aren’t going to necessarily make the purchase, this new feature is going to encourage them to visit your site and perhaps look at other new products you are selling. It’s another way to increase engagement on your website and is likely to have a big impact on your overall sales.

The best ways to use Instagram as a retail brand

If you are keen to cash in on the potential of social media as a retail brand, you need to get on board with the power of Instagram. Read on for our top tips on how to utilise the site to your advantage.

Engage with your customers

Social media is of course a platform for communication and engagement, so this kind of goes without saying, don’t ignore your customers! If people are asking you questions about restocks and sizing, answer them. This makes your brand seem personable and like you care about your consumer’s needs.

It’s also important to keep on top of posts with your products tagged in. You could use this on your profile to promote your brand further and show your customers that you also engage with their profiles.  

Create a brand story

Remember, your brand is more than just your products, and Instagram is a great place to create your very own brand story. A good way to do this is by ensuring that you post more than just images of your products. Focus on finding quotes or fun imagery that aligns with your company values. This will make for a more engaging profile that customers will love to visit. 

As an SME, social media is an invaluable tool that can help your company to grow. Not only is it free, it also allows you to connect with different audiences, promote your brand and interact with those who are interested in your offering.

If you are keen to enhance your social media channels to help bolster your business’s performance, read on to find out how.

Focus on curated posts  

When you’re trying to engage a wider audience, you need to make sure that you aren’t simply posting sales pitches on your Twitter and Facebook accounts. While these are a great way of promoting your brand and can also help you to notify people of promotions that you might have going on, they aren’t particularly interesting and tend to make you seem pretty one-dimensional.

Instead, focus on finding articles and blogs that will be of interest to your customers. This will interest them more and is likely to mean that they’ll want to spend more time checking your pages.

Show your personality 

Your social media pages need to have a clear tone of voice that is pertinent to your brand and that consumers can get to grips with, so remember to be yourself, or, more accurately, use language in the way that your business would if it could speak.

If your company is corporate, avoid anything to flowery and think about using industry-specific language and hashtags to drive traffic to your site. Similarly, if you have designed a fun brand, using colloquial language should help keep people interested.

Engage with your audience

There really is no point in making use of social media if you aren’t going to use it for its main purpose; to interact with people. If customers ask you questions, be sure to answer them. This will help you to build a rapport with them and could lead to an increase in sales. You can also ask them questions about your brand and services to find out what they like, what they don’t like and how you can improve.

Don’t neglect images and video content

For pages that are truly engaging, you need a good mix of text, images and video. Consider some behind the scenes videos, interviews with customers and staff and product launch content. 

As an SME owner, you should constantly be looking for ways that you can expand your offering and facilitate growth.

Whether that means diversifying into new markets on a global scale, employing more staff or trying to win new clients, there are a number of steps that you can take to ensure that your SME keeps on growing.

Look for emerging markets

Having your eye on emerging markets is something that SME owners need to continuously do if they want to grow. Developing countries, which are often referred to in the business world as emerging markets, are fast becoming the driver of global growth.

Think about how you can cash in on your online presence

If you haven’t considered it already, you really need to start thinking about how what you do online can benefit your business. Creating a website and utilising a number of social media channels gives you the opportunity to connect with a completely new audience on a number of different platforms and subsequently makes growth a lot easier.

Make use of free services such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. You can use these sites to offer promotions, discuss new services that you are offering and could even use them to help with recruitment.

Secure effective finance 

For growth to be possible, you need to ensure that you have adequate finance to help you achieve what you want to. We have a number of business loan options available that take into account your businesses individual requirements. Be offer both secured and unsecured loans and are able to match you with dedicated lenders that will help you reach your goals. To find out more, visit our website.

Literally expand your business

Physically expanding can be a great way of moving into new markets, but it’s important that you find a location that will suit both you and your product. You will also need to ensure that you are surrounding by a determined team that can help you along every step of the way, from finding the new location to getting things up and running. Remember, every new location will also require a new business plan, so be sure to map this out before you look into new places to operate from.

Keen to grow your SME this year? Find out more about how our financing options can help here.