3 Essentials for Effective Marketing

Whether you are just getting started or have been managing your small business for years, make sure these three essentials stay top of mind as your marketing strategy evolves.

1. Understand your Target Audience

The ultimate marketing strategies always start with getting to know who your audience is. Some important concepts to identify are:

• Demographics
• Main concerns and pain points
• Motivations and goals when making specific purchases
• How purchase decisions are made
• Where buyer’s research is done

You can gain this information through multiple avenues such as customer surveys, online research, website data and analytics, and, of course, traditional customer engagement.

2. Develop a Marketing Plan

We all know you never truly know where you are going if you don’t have a plan in mind, so after you have researched your target audience, consider your marketing plan.

A marketing plan is a plan that provides the overall strategy of your business over a certain period of time. This may be something you develop on an annual basis and review quarterly, or you may develop it on a quarterly basis and review monthly.

Within your marketing plan, you should consider including the following:

• Goals and objectives
• Target audience
• Strategies (content, brand, social, etc.)
• Tactics 
• Budget
• Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Your marketing plan should continue to evolve as not only your company changes, but also to adapt to the ever-changing consumer.

3. Include a Variety of Content

Your business is yours and nobody else’s, so it should reflect your brand’s value to a “t.” Do this by creating well written content that speaks to your audience’s needs, while also highlighting your service offering.

Producing a variety of content allows you to connect with your audience in different formats. Consider creating written content (articles, blogs), video, audio (podcasts), PDFs and PowerPoints, worksheets/checklists.

As you consider your content, create different categories that will speak to your audience in various ways. These categories could be:

• Real-time
• Seasonal
• Evergreen

You know your customers best and by figuring out their pain points, you can develop a successful marketing strategy to engage with them at an effective level.