As a business owner, when you begin to plan a marketing strategy for your small business you’ll quickly learn that reaching your potential customers or clients is the hardest part. In order to ensure you’re able to reach the individuals who are most likely to become your loyal customers, it’s important to be able to correctly identify exactly who these individuals are.
But that’s only the first step.
Here are two important phases of improving customer loyalty and engagement:
Phase I: Identify your business’s target audience
The goods and/or services your business produces will not be for everybody. In other words, there is a specific subset of individuals who will most benefit from what you’re offering.
Your first step is to identify these individuals so that you can build your marketing scheme around being able to reach them. In order to have a successful marketing strategy, you’ll need to block out the people who you’re likely to never reach. This will leave you free to focus your attention on how to reach those who are likely to purchase your products or services.
Hint: It really can’t be everybody, so don’t bother trying.
Phase II: Determine how you’ll communicate with your audience
Being able to reach the right audience is crucial, but how do you communicate with them once you’ve figured out who they are?
While there isn’t a single answer to this question, there are several effective ways to accomplish this. For starters, consider creating an informative inventory of articles full of highly relevant and informative content. Doing so will not only allow you to focus your most important information on your website, but it will also allow your audience to find pertinent information about your brand.
Take this knowledge center, for example:
The site hosts a national directory for attorneys by state. By creating categories, topics and content with their site visitors in mind, they have created a unique resource tailored for their target audience and successfully communicated their mission to visitors.
Other strategies for communicating with your target audience include featuring customer reviews/testimonials, engaging with customers on social media, starting an email newsletter, etc.
Conclusion
In summary, planning a successful marketing strategy relies on: first, identifying your target audience (and acknowledging that you have a target audience); and second, figuring out the best ways to connect with that audience. This is the heart and soul of a marketing plan.
Running a small business can be daunting. However, with the proper tools and information, like the information you can learn from our Online Incorporation Knowledge Center, you will be well on your way to success.