How to Boost Traffic to your Small Business

Published on: 06 August 2018 Last Updated on: 12 September 2024

We read about new startups coming up with their services and products on the market almost every day. The story of most of the entrepreneurs is same; a team of hard-working people coupled up and managed to string some money to get off the strip to finally cruise in the field of business.

Unfortunately, most of them have to close up shop for numerous reasons. Being an entrepreneur, one should be able to learn so many things, all at once. Failure teaches a lot, and there’s always a way out of the mess in every field I can imagine of. Some make it to the next level, which is; a small business: one that has steady growth and ensured revenues.

Since a considerable number of people have moved on from the offline world to the digital arena, business firms have to evolve their marketing strategies as well. Failing to do so will only make your business get out of the market in the end. To create a hurdle for failure on your way, the most important thing today is to opt for some affordable digital marketing services. Affordable is necessary to cut the overall costs because initially, most startups do not have enough financial resources.

What digital marketing does is that it attracts people towards the services that you have to offer to them. The four primary pillars that digital marketing works on are content, communication, community, and commerce. Let us circle around these pillars in brief.

Content :

To enhance your visibility to the public, you need to have a presence on the platforms that people use frequently. You must spend a little deal of your precious time and money in buying a website which can be used to reach out to the people. But to be able to generate some customers from there, you need to put some content over there to lure the masses.

Content

Content Marketing does not directly promote the business. If done correctly, it attracts the targeted audience, which can eventually drive to profitable customer action.

Communication :

As it is said; it takes two to tango. Although it does not precisely fit into the context, the rough meaning it carries here is that you must not focus only on speaking. Give the visitors a platform to respond to you as well.

This can be achieved through adverts, personal communication with people who seem to be interested, and social media. With the application of email address at almost forum, there’s a very thin chance that people will not go through yours when they open up their account.

Community :

This again is customer engagement but in a slightly different way. Because of the presence of social media, businesses have the liberty to interact with their audience to understand their opinions about them. Visitors can help you improve your services to an all-new level.

These platforms occasionally make changes to their policies as a whole, so you must go through them every single time they amend. If you don’t manage accordingly, well, get ready for the consequences then.

Commerce :

Regardless of where people choose to buy a product, it all starts with the internet today. A significant number of people search for a product online and read about it in different places to know about it as much as they can before paying for it.

Digital marketing commerce meets the needs of consumers based on how they research and purchase. Review sites are the places where people spend most of their time to read about the products, and then is the online shopping stores. People use multiple applications on their smartphones to look out for the product description as well.

Summing Up :

Traffic is the backbone of every business, and that is why it needs to be taken care of, for better growth. Enterprises survive in the competitive market only when they have enough customers. Note that you must never compromise your quality for quantity.

While there are a lot of things like SEO, SEM, PPC, this article was about what exactly can digital marketing do for your business to grow over the years. Smart and hard work must go hand in hand to reach the top of the business ladder.

Content Rally

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

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The Best Methods To Build Strong Customer Relationships

Despite the plethora of advertising resources available in the digital marketplace, one key issue still has not been resolved - how do you build strong customer relationships? As a direct link between you and your customers, an email address will allow publishers to build a personal connection with an audience. Below are further marketing tips that can be used to develop a stronger client relationship using email marketing. The Best Methods To Build Strong Customer Relationships 1. Move The Social Media Audience To A Direct Channel By Gaining Their Email Address: To strengthen your target audience relationship, you should reconsider how you view Facebook. You cannot connect with a target audience on a platform where all algorithm tweaks reduce its reach and take you further from your potential customers. Instead of playing "cat and mouse" using Facebook's algorithms, it is recommended that you utilize the social platform as a channel for acquisition. Making use of social media platforms CTA features will help you support your email newsletters to the target audience and lead the social audience to your company's email list. From this point, you will be able to engage with them without any interference from the social platform. 2. Using Email Capture Apps To Connect With The Site Visitors In An Inbox: When visitors arrive on your website via an organic search or from social media, they are likely to leave the site as soon as they arrive. By utilizing onsite capture resources to collect their email addresses before they leave, you will be able to set up a direct and long-term form of communication with the audience. Not only will email subscribers build up more lifetime website visits than visitors from Facebook, but they also tend to view more site pages during their session. To maximize the email conversions, it is recommended that you utilize active capture widgets with a contextual newsletter offer. This is likely to convert passing visitors to the website into lifetime subscribers. In this way, you will be increasing the likelihood of engaging users in the long-term and nurturing these subscribers with new content. 3. Building Strong Reading Habits With The Audience Via Newsletters: In the traditional text publishing world, the typical delivery of publications builds reading styles with their target customers. The newsletter via email is the option most similar to that traditional form of publication and habit-forming print media. By sending a constant street of relevant content to the audience's inbox, you will engage the audience continuously; thereby, demonstrating the value of paying for your website's content. You can deepen this engagement through cross-promotion and encouragement of the audience to subscribe to additional newsletters. The quality of newsletters is why the New York Times found that people are more likely to pay for a subscription if they first subscribed to their newsletter; therefore, the email newsletter is the ideal resource for building relationships necessary in the digital publishing environment. Before online transactions and exchanges became the norm, brands were responsible for fostering physical and in some cases emotional connections with their clientele. This resulted in a strong and loyal brand audience, repeat purchases, and other immeasurable value for the business. In today's society, the majority of brands will opt for social media and social marketing to engage with consumers and substitute human interaction. Understanding that humans require relationships in their personal lives and when purchasing items, businesses acknowledge the need to build relationships with consumers, form user engagement, and drive more beneficial sales. While some companies engage with their consumers well using online measures, not all brands are as fortunate. So, how can we stand above our rivals when trying to engage with a target audience? There are several ways in which a smaller company can drive more sales by building strong online consumer relationships. 4. Surveying The Consumers And Gain Their Opinions: Providing your consumer with exactly what they want is potentially the best method to make sales, increase trust in the company, and gain repeat customers. It is the ideal situation and is a building strategy that can help a company get its way with almost any customer. The question remains, however, how do you discover what a consumer's needs are and how do you meet them? Simple, find out what they want by sending them surveys. Before marketing became digital, practical market research was performed via traditional questionnaires or surveys. The original question of how much you agree with a statement would find out if the person strongly agrees, strongly disagreed, or was somewhere in the middle. Regardless of the standard of error metrics that tend to bore the average person, this technique can provide companies with good insight into their consumer market. Customer feedback and surveys can now be conducted using email, via social media platforms, or on different websites. One of the survey platforms available allowing companies to send targeted surveys to consumers through social media and emails is SurveyMonkey. Companies can also gain insight from consumers using Qualaroo as they provide information as soon as the consumer visits the website. 5. Using Email To Communicate: Forming an email list is potentially one of the most significant methods a business can remain in contact with its consumers, build trust, and make sales - unless you are a spammer. If all emails you send are "sale-sy", then you are engaging incorrectly and will more than likely be considered spam. Emails should provide valuable information for the customer to share and once you have provided content to address their needs, you can build rapport and foster the digital relationship to be successful! They can also act as promotions later with the help of a Houston search engine marketing firm. By creating an aesthetically pleasing and informing sales copy to go along with your email, it can make a great impact! Real-Time Video Chat For Consumer Support Real-time video chat is considered one of the hotter topics with businesses that are looking to build relationships with online customers. In late 2017, Amazon implemented the "Mayday Button" - a new feature on the Kindle Fire to allow a user to receive video communication with a client support agent. Never before had this type of online support been available and the user is now able to speak with a representative in an innovative manner. Today, Amazon notes that consumers can use video chat in under 15 seconds and this is much better than waiting on the telephone for a new customer agent to take your call. Read Also: Not All Customers Are Always Right How To Write And Design An Article That Attracts New Customers To Your Business 5 Steps On How To Market Your Business Using Social Media

KF Documentary: Tips For Small Business To Learn From KFC’s Brand Turnaround

It wasn’t that long ago that reports about KFC’s sales falling were drawing a rather dismal picture for the brand. And yet today, it’s standing strong as ever, proudly taking the title of the second most popular fast-food chain on the planet. Today in this KFC documentary, we will look into the strategies KFC used to regain its position. The turnaround this brand managed to accomplish in a handful of years is rather miraculous in the world of business, and many can learn from its example. Some of the techniques used by KFC in its road back to the top can be adapted for small businesses that are working their way up their own niches. KFC Documentary: Brand Revival After KFC fall to the ground and fail to satisfy their customers with their product in 2013, they decided to connect with the customers on the emotional levels and started marketing business once again. This time they took the help of the digital platform to reach out wider bandwidth of audiences. 1. Make Advertisements Branded And Fun Ads are annoying, and people skip them, right? Well, KFC managed to create a series of ads that people were really looking forward to watching. Each was an entertaining clip featuring ‘Colonel Sanders’ in some new interesting role. Colonel, the founder and greatest asset of KFC, is the embodiment of the brand today. On the contrary, the company is immortalizing him by turning him from a real-life showman and marketing genius into a fictional hero who has his own fan club. There are even books about his rise to the brand icon role now. A small business will not be able to launch a multimillion campaign with fancy ads, but you can create a character that will give a personality to your brand. Choose something or someone that your target audience will be able to relate to. Your goal is to make your marketing seem less like self-promotion and more like a friend or idol offering advice. 2. Make Your Customer Feedback Count One thing that KFC has always been focused on was delivering a top-quality customer experience. One of the main methods the brand uses to achieve that is directly asking for feedback and actually using it. All you need to do in order to share your opinion and be heard is to fill up the KFC survey. Have you ever done this yourself? Did it help improve the service or address any issue you had? Did you feel like you can contribute to the betterment of your favorite fast-food restaurant by taking that survey? Considering how smoothly the KFC customer service runs, the answers to those questions are most likely ‘yes’. And that is what a small business owner should learn from KFC. You need to establish a way for your customers to provide feedback (a customer satisfaction survey is a good start). Then, you need to pay attention to that feedback and follow up on it immediately. Today you can find or develop specialized solutions that will process this information to make this easier. That’s why the survey format is optimal for small companies that cannot hire a full-time call center service. KFC Documentary: Final Thoughts Of course, there was more to KFC’s triumph, like leveraging humor as well as extensive work in local market research and launching dozens of localized projects, like traditional menu changes. However, as a small business owner, you need to start with things that can bring tangible results right away. Read Also: Basic Small Business Tips for Noobs Who Want to Start a Venture in 2020 Cost-Effective Custom Mobile Accessories Packaging for your Small Business How To Empower Your Small Business through Digital Marketing? How To Sell A Small Business Without A Broker

How To Sell A Small Business Without A Broker

Once you’re ready to sell your small business, hiring a business broker tops your list. An article from this perfectly defines the role of business brokers that is to act as “intermediaries between buyers and sellers of a business”. They are the equivalent of real estate brokers or agents who sell properties on behalf of property owners. Business brokers manage everything necessary to sell your small business, from planning to marketing to closing the deal. Some even assist during the transition process. Considering such an enormous task, enlisting a broker may seem the easiest and most convenient thing to do. However, their service comes with an outrageous fee, usually around 10% commission from the sale. This is certainly a huge cut from your profits. If you want to retain the full profit from the sale, you can opt to sell your small business sans middlemen. This is an excellent choice especially if you have previous experience selling a business, you know of prospective buyers, or you’re not in a hurry to sell-off. However, when you decide to sell your business on your own, you have to be ready for a tedious legwork. So, how do you go about the sale? Know your reason for selling the small business According to a business broker, the first thing that a buyer would want to know is why a business is being sold. For a business to attract a potential buyer, you need to have a good reason. Some of the common reasons are retirement, sudden changes in personal circumstances, illness or death, boredom, partnership disputes, and burnout. Prospective buyers find these as ‘attractive’ reasons to buy a business. It may be harder to sell a business if you tell the buyer that you’re selling the business due to its sorry financial state, persistent losses, lack of manpower, and changing market conditions and trends. Make your business easily marketable by timing your sale properly. Show positive attributes to make it more marketable such as a strong customer base, increased profitability, consistent good financials, well-defined business processes, and a good contract. Plan your sale Prepare your business at least two years ahead of the sale, especially if you won’t enlist a broker. Have an ample amount of time to improve your client base, business structure, and financial records. This will help improve the value of your business and make it more attractive to buyers. This should also help ease the transition process. Get your business appraised Once you’re ready to sell, you need to decide on the worth of your business. It is best to work with a professional business appraiser to get a proper valuation. Often, business owners become illogical when it comes to evaluating their own business. Some price is too low in an attempt to make it more marketable but end up losing on potential profit. Others price it too high hence making it unattractive to potential buyers. A business appraiser will evaluate your business to determine its worth. He then prepares a detailed explanation to give credibility to the proposed price. Prepare all documents Give time in preparing the design or sales package for your business. This document represents your business in the best possible light to potential buyers. It should include financial, operational and marketing information. If you are not comfortable with your communication skills, you can enlist the help of professional business writers. Financial documents are an important part of the sale process. Gather your books of account, financial statements, and tax returns for the past four years. Review these documents with an accountant. In addition, develop a list of assets that are being sold along with the business. Include other necessary documents such as lease agreements, supplier contracts, and contact lists. Prepare an information packet or operating manual that provides an overview of your business processes. In addition, you want to add photographs of your business, testimonials, case studies, and customer profiles. Highlight accomplishments and milestones to make it more marketable and command better-asking price. Prepare your business on-site Alongside the documentary preparations, you should also make your business site presentable. Check your physical store, production site, warehouse, and other related locations. You might need to have some areas repainted or redeveloped. Check if equipment or machinery needs to be replaced or fixed before the sale. Investing in such developments can help improve the asking price. It might sound cliché but first impressions last. An unkempt and dilapidated business site might turn off a potential buyer. It pays to invest in your physical asset as soon as you decide to sell on your own. Look for a buyer to sell your small business Finding a buyer is difficult, but it becomes doubly challenging if you don’t have a business broker. Unless you have a ready buyer, it may take several months to years before you can find the right buyer. The advantage of hiring a business broker is that they have wide networks and established marketing methods. If you are working solo, you will need to compensate for these services. There are listing sites dedicated to businesses-on-sale. You only need to pay a one-time fee and your business becomes available to potential buyers. You can also tap your networks. Perhaps, a friend or an acquaintance (or someone they know) is planning to buy a business. You can check your local business clubs or chambers. Visit online forums and social networks. Don’t limit your advertising methods. Final Thoughts As you can see, if you sell your small business without a broker is possible. It can even be advantageous if you play an active role in the sales and negotiation process. Quite obviously, business owners are more passionate to sell their business to the right buyers. Of course, you just have to remain rational and avoid getting your emotions to affect your decisions. As a final caution, if you have no experience selling and buying a business, you should consider working with a business broker or someone who has experience in this field. Better yet, you can check with your local chamber of commerce for assistance and counseling. Read Also: How to Boost Traffic to your Small Business Cost Effective Custom Mobile Accessories Packaging for your Small Business How To Empower Your Small Business through Digital Marketing? 4 Simple And Cheap Methods To Attract More Customers For Your Small Business

How to Boost Traffic to your Small Business

Content :

Communication :

Community :

Commerce :

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Benefits of NBFC Business Loans

Content Rally

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

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The Best Methods To Build Strong Customer Relationships

KF Documentary: Tips For Small Business To Learn From KFC’s Brand Turnaround

How To Sell A Small Business Without A Broker

How to Boost Traffic to your Small Business

Content :

Communication :

Community :

Commerce :

Share this Article

Which One Should You Pick? Cloud-Based Call Centers Vs. On-Premises Call Centers

Benefits of NBFC Business Loans

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

Leave a Reply

Popular

Follow Us

Recent

Related