Solomon Thimothy is on a mission to help as many entrepreneurs as possible start and scale their businesses. | President of OneIMS.
It’s no secret that marketing in the digital age has become incredibly convoluted. Often, it feels like a never-ending competition to be seen, and fighting for space on the World Wide Web is no small feat.
Since digital marketing took the business world by storm and traditional forms of marketing started going out the window, it’s a lot harder to position yourself as the number one expert and the go-to in your field.
Whether you’re a medical care provider or a tech giant in a sea of companies, entrepreneurs know how difficult it can be to get the top spot. Not to mention to get there and then maintain the momentum.
With this, the perception that you must spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on ads to get noticed has become all too common. I’ve got a different (less doom and gloom) take – this could not be further from the truth.
There are several ways to boost your business without having to fork out the big bucks. Whether forming an image of your ideal customer or filming a video that speaks to your audience, you don’t have to operate in a deficit to be successful.
Position Yourself as the Leader in Your Industry
If you’ve been in charge of your marketing or delegated it to someone else, you’ll be no stranger to the idea that paid ads are what will put your business on the map.
I’m certainly not denying that this is a fantastic growth technique. However, more budget-friendly, efficient ways exist to generate interest in your product or service and convert leads into sales.
A marketing strategy should work towards making you a leader in your industry. When you think of business giants like Elon Musk or Bill Gates or media companies like SkySports and Al Jazeera, they have the authority in their respective industries and spaces.
When I ask people why they think that is, they often say it’s because they know how to get attention – they’re omnipresent, basically everywhere you look, you’ll see them.
Yes, these entrepreneurs and media networks might have massive amounts of money behind them, but they started with a whole lot less. They didn’t skyrocket to fame in months or even years; their journey to becoming an authority, a monopoly, was gradual and consistent.
Content Creation is Key
Content creation is the ultimate vehicle for getting your business out there and speaking directly to your audience. Being camera shy is not an option if you want to get seen.
People want to know what your brand is all about, and one of the best ways to do this is to get recording. Whether you have the best video camera on the market or you’ve set up your iPhone on a tripod, it doesn’t actually matter. What does matter is that you’re presenting your audience with what they want to hear.
Say you film a YouTube video about the ways businesses can adapt to the increasing reliance on AI – you can then take that video, chop it up into small videos, post them on your socials, and write a blog based on the information within it. That’s a whole lot of content that you haven’t paid a cent for, and if you are covering the right topics, it has a much higher chance of getting viewed.
Are You Meeting Your Audiences’ Needs?
The best way to fail at your marketing is by creating content that you like. You are not the target audience. The aim is to determine what your customers want and need from you.
The other thing to remember is that you don’t have to please everyone – it is better to have 100 dedicated clients than 10,000 who are slightly interested but not enough to invest in what you’re offering. This is where it’s acute to define your ideal customer. Who do you sell to? What are you offering that targets their pain points and solves their problem?
Creating a customer persona involves drawing a picture of them, giving them a name, and writing down everything about them. From their income to their daily routine, how many pets they have, and whether or not they like Thai food.
Write down every single detail you can think of. This will help shape the image of your ideal customer so you know who your product or service is speaking to.
Nurture Leads and Customers
You’ve found your target audience and created content that speaks to them, and now they’re fully engaged in what you have to offer them as a business. Now what? The next challenge is to keep them engaged.
If you don’t nurture your leads and follow them through, or you fail to remain in the minds of people you have gained as customers, your success will begin to fall off. If you want to be rewarded for the hard work you’ve put in initially, you have to find a way to encourage those customers to keep coming back.
Show your customers that they’re valued, that you haven’t forgotten about them, and that you want to maintain the brand-client relationship you’ve built. Whether through content, email marketing, or personalized gestures, staying on the ball with contact is the only way to earn repeat business.
Create, Connect, Communicate.
It’s fair to say that building a reputable brand that people want to engage with is not an overnight job. But it doesn’t need to cost you an arm and a leg either. There’s a formula to gaining brand recognition and making sales – be consistent, make as much content as possible, listen to your audience, and don’t leave them hanging once they’ve caught on. You don’t need ads to do any of these things or a big budget. What it comes down to is how willing you are to put the work in.