When you decide to start your own business, there will be a lot of things you need to learn. If you want to become a successful business owner and take your empire to the next level; marketing is a key factor. If you don’t know much about marketing, or if you just want to up your game and increase your reach; then take a look at these tips.

Learn The Types of Marketing

Direct – This is anything which markets a product directly to the consumer. It could include going to events, talking on the phone and sending out flyers or newsletters.

Indirect – A more subtle way to market yourself is by using indirect marketing. A good example of this is social media. As you share posts throughout the day, not all of your content is for sales purposes- it is to engage with your community and gain a good reputation.

Build A Website

The first step on the ladder t a great marketing strategy is to build yourself a website. When someone wants to find out about your company or look for a service or product; they will search the term on a search engine and look for a website. Make sure that you have a simple site which explains your business well, and is clean in design. You don’t have to hire someone to build your website for you; you can just as easily use a CMS system such as Wix or Wordpress to create a simple website using ready-made templates for ease. The only thing left to do once you’ve built your site is to register your domain name. You’ll need to buy a domain from a site such as GoDaddy and add that onto your website.

Start A Blog

Bloggers are fast becoming some of the most influential people on the internet. Sparking interesting conversation and giving opinions and useful information is what makes people want to engage with your brand. Consider adding a blog section to your website and writing content which is related to your business and provides some useful information for your followers.

Get Social

Social media has really planted a firm root into digital marketing in the last few years, and it is becoming more and more essential for companies to have that online presence. The great thing about social media is that it is so diverse and offers a different experience for different people. For example, if you are a B2B business and want to connect with fellow professionals in your industry – LinkedIn is the best option for you.

If you are a kitchen appliance brand and want to demonstrate how your appliances work, consider starting a YouTube channel and sharing simple recipes using the appliances you sell.

Social media has something for everyone, and you can really make it your own.

Create Some Great Graphics

If you’ve ever looked at someone’s branding and wished you could afford to hire a company to make it for you; don’t. Canva and other free graphic design software’s are the key to creating beautiful infographics, logos and marketing material within minutes.

SEO

Search Engine Optimisation sounds much more complicated than it is. The idea is that when you search a word on Google, you will be given a list of items which contain said word. In order for you to rank highly on the search engine for a keyword, you need to incorporate the words into your content and website’s code. SEO is a huge stepping stone to creating a successful business- as it helps you to get your name out there in front of more people. If you want to appear in the first page of search results for a particular keyword, add that word into your website as much as possible.

Keep Up With The Latest Trends

If you are familiar with twitter, you’ll see that every day there are certain hashtags which are trending around the world. When Donald Trump won the election, twitter went crazy talking about him. Taking advantage of current events is a skill which can gain you a whole new level of engagement for your business. Tracking trending topics and the news can allow you to share your content in line with what is popular and gain many more followers.

When season 7 of Game Of Thrones came out, social media exploded with all GOT related things, and they gained a lot of attention because it was popular at the time. Use a site such as Google Trends to help you stay ahead of the game and outdo the competition.

Run A Campaign

A campaign is essentially a test. When you want to share a particular new product, promote your new blog post, or send out an email to clients; you create the campaign and then monitor the responses you get afterward. A campaign can bring in more people to your social channels, drive traffic to your website, and even convert into sales for your product or service. There are several different ways you can promote yourself and your business to gain sales:

Search Engine Ad – If you were to run an ad on Google, you would use AdWords to create a banner advert which would be displayed at the top of the search results each time someone searched particular words. You can choose the keywords to do this for, as well as the duration of your advert, the locations it will be shown and also the budget you want to use. Once it’s done you’ll be able to go into AdWords and see how many views you gained.

Social Media Ad – Social media adverts are diverse, so we will talk about just two of them for the time being. If you were to promote something on Facebook, you choose the post to promote, set a budget and duration, select the countries in which it will be shown and the interests of your target audience.

If you were to boost a Pin on Pinterest, you need to switch to a business account, set your budget and then your target audience. You will be able to see the analytics and success of the campaign afterward.

Banner Ad – A banner ad can be used on any website. It is simply a small banner which appears on a webpage with your information on it. You could choose to display your ad on a popular magazine, or even an industry website related to your business.

Get Analysing

Once you’ve implemented your social accounts and began to create campaigns, it’s time to analyse your work. You can use apps such as Google Analytics to track the views to your website, the engagement and other things such as bounce rate. A low bounce rate means that people stay on your page and don’t immediately click away.

You can also see where your traffic is coming from, and there are three main types of traffic you should be looking for:

· Organic – someone has search for you in a search engine and clicked through to your website

· Paid – You search engine advert has driven traffic to your site

· Referral – People have clicked a link from social media or an email

Being able to see where your traffic is coming from can allow you to adjust your strategy and work harder on where you fall short.

You can also see the demographics of the people who view your site. This can include, gender, age, location, language and even interests. It will allow you to see if you are reaching the right people and allow you to make improvements.