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Are you challenged for being seen online as an authority in the marketplace for your business?

With all of the different marketing channels for print and online advertising, it can difficulty to stay in front of prospects and clients in the B2B space for the digital economy.

Here are tips that can help gain that exposure for your business online:

Getting found online

Your website is critical for marketing online as it tells your story, showcases your products and services, and gives you the platform to speak about your expertise to the world. Stay up-to-date for connecting properly with your target audiences and elevating your brand effectively for greater impact.

Content development. Stay relevant with your customers and generating specific content that draws them to your brand. You may have your About page that tells viewers what you are all about, however you need to continually grow your resources to educate, create value to your audience, and help establish the proper engagement with them to increase your customer base.

Listening to your audience. Are you staying connected in the right channels to engage with your prospects? Start conversations to create relationships and turn them into customers – be strategic about it, as your competitors are doing the same. Building trust over time within community discussion groups, blog posts, and listening to your prospect’s needs and pain points. Being a good listener and answering them at the right time could turn them into future clients.

Are customers seeing you?

Social media. Online platforms have changed the way we access the world and stay relevant as a business. You must increase your brand awareness on social media platforms that are most relevant to your customers. Find where they are and get active on sharing content that is useful to them with comments and posting related content.

Paid advertising. Grow your base to gain more followers and connect with prospects globally. Paid ads help you reach those people not available by other marketing means. Use specific keywords, hashtags, and descriptions for the type of areas you want to be known for. Many platforms offer keyword search recommendations and target demographics that will assist you if you are unsure of how to target your ads.

Using existing content. With the ever changing digital space of the internet, new content is generated faster than we can create it for our own businesses. If you have been at this a while and have created strong resources as articles, videos, and blog posts consider reposting those resources after six months and expand the content so it feels new. Add videos, infographics, or a deeper understanding on the topic in Slideshare. Develop topics into an eBook or white paper, showing the your value to the world. This will help gain that brand exposure you need to build revenue.

Do your customers hear from you?

Building commitment. Once a prospect finds you from an ad or gets to your website, the process does not stop there for relationship building. You must offer ways for them to connect with you. Develop an email signup form so it’s easy for people to hear from you. Other areas you can offer a free eBook, a white paper of a downloadable resource. Plus, keep your social media icons in an easy location to find and connect with you on each platform.

Developing engagement for one-on-one conversations. Ultimately you want people to find you, connect with you, and start a conversation all online. In the digital world we must make it easy to start those conversations. Be present where you see your target customers, interact with them, and give them a reason to become a new customer through a great customer experience. Over time customers can be your biggest advocates and refer business to you utilizing the same online platforms we live for generating business.

Stay active online and focus on customers that you want to work with. Build the relationships and give them the best customer experience you can. Generate the brand awareness and leads you are after to grow your ROI. Go and embrace the digital landscape![/vc_column_text][us_separator show_line=”1″][vc_column_text]How do you continue to grow awareness to your prospects and clients? Here are some additional tips to connect with your customers for fruitful marketing:[/vc_column_text][us_btn label=”Show Me More Marketing Tips” link=”url:%2F6-tips-for-fruitful-marketing%2F|||” style=”3″ css=”.vc_custom_1569532317722{margin-top: 20px !important;}”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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How will you use marketing to grow your business?

Hopefully you’re as excited about marketing as we are. If you could use some tips and tweaks to freshen your approach or even if you need to start your marketing planning from scratch, we can help. Here are our top 5 marketing tips to help you hit the ground running this year!

1. Set annual marketing goals you can achieve

Apply the SMART strategy to your marketing goals. Are your marketing goals for the year:

• Specific: Marketing goals that are clearly defined will help keep you moving forward. They will also help you set a clear action plan. Think about the who, what, when, where, and why of the goals.
• Measurable: Set quantifiable and/or qualitative marketing objectives. Think about what kinds of metrics or data you’ll gather and how you’ll report throughout the year. Then if progress is off track, you can re-calibrate marketing efforts and still attain your goals.
• Achievable: Establish annual marketing goals that you can meet through the work that you do every day, and with the resources you have on hand and the skills you and your team contribute or are able to build.
• Relevant: Select marketing goals that support your overall business goals. Just because you could achieve something doesn’t mean it makes sense to do it if it now doesn’t align with what your entire company is working toward and prioritizing.
• Time bound: Choose realistic target dates to achieve your marketing goals and then set milestones and action plans to help you track and make progress toward those goals.

If you applied a SMART strategy last year, review what worked and what didn’t work, then reset, rebuild, or remove them for your current year’s efforts.

2. Create a marketing plan

Now is a perfect time to either create a new or updated marketing plan. Even if you’ve been in business for years, take the time to review any old marketing plans, revise, and head into the rest of the year with a strong vision. Having trouble creating that vision? Start with your SMART goals and align with your business’s overall key objectives and the tasks to support them to kick things off right.

3. Update financials and marketing ROI

Key to SMART (and intelligent) marketing efforts is a strong working knowledge of the financials of your small business. Start a checklist and dig into an analysis that includes these questions:

• Is your bookkeeping up to date and in good order?
• Is your pricing still accurate or does it need an adjustment?
• What was the return on investment (ROI) from your marketing work last year?
• What worked and what needs to be adjusted?

Don’t limit yourself to looking at last year. Look back over the past five years and remember what worked in the past might not work, or it could actually be time to dust off your tried and true tactics for new gains.

4. Review industry economic and business trends

The world of business is moving as fast as the rest of our lives, so re-orient yourself with the big picture of what’s happening and then bring in the specific applicable trends for your business. Examine risks and opportunities from the overall global economy and then examine what’s happening in business news and trends nationally, regionally, and locally. Make a pros and cons list and think about how the current and near-future economic climate may challenge or reward your marketing efforts. Create contingency plans for the risks on the list. And add a section to your SMART goal based marketing plan on how to take advantage of the opportunities.

5. Check out our additional advice

Need more than just our top 5 marketing tips? We’ve got some more great marketing advice on a range of subjects like content marketing and how to effectively use social media. Struggling with brand basics? Take our self-guided 10-point brand assessment. We have you covered with ways to develop your brand, how to build greater brand consistency, and how to measure the value of your company’s branding. We even have tips to help you create the right tradeshow experience and how to generate more leads from tradeshows. For these and other helpful tips and hints, check out our blog on the Serff Creative Group website.

We hope our top five marketing tips help you get started on a better path to success!

For some inspiration about branding, take our free, self-guided, 10-Point brand assessment. It’s the brand process we use to help our clients bring clarity and consistency to their businesses.[/vc_column_text][us_btn label=”Grab Your FREE, Self-guided 10-Point Brand Assessment Now!” link=”url:%2F10-point-brand-assessment%2F|||” style=”3″][/vc_column][/vc_row]