WHAT'S WORKING IN MARKETING IN 2024

Here are five marketing strategies working for small businesses in 2024

OTT Advertising

OTT advertising or Over-the-top advertising, is another excellent way to promote your business in 2024. These ads play during streaming services, like Hulu, so many people see them. The amount of people using streaming services is increasing every day throughout 2024 as well, meaning you can reach as many people as possible.

Plus, OTT ads can use targeted advertising. You can narrow down the groups you reach so you only send them the most relevant ads, leading to higher engagement.

You also receive measurable results, making it easier to tell how effective your ads are. You can quickly track the performance of your targeted ads and adjust them to make them even more effective.

Finally, you can be very creative with OTT ads and offer your viewers a more intuitive experience. For example, you can provide a lot of information in a short amount of time using these ads. 

Source: https://www.robinwaite.com/blog/8-ways-to-advertise-and-promote-your-business-in-2024

 

Create Quality Content

Quality content is written, visual, audio, or video marketing content that's accurate, well-researched, and aligns with website visitors' search intent.  In other words, it reliably answers questions and covers topics that users are searching for when they click through from search results.

Content marketing comes in many forms, including:

·         Blog posts

·         Infographics

·         White papers

·         Videos

·         Podcasts

High quality content is important because it can build trust in your small business, increase conversions (e.g., leads or purchases), retain customers, and improve search engine rankings.

Source: https://www.semrush.com/blog/small-business-marketing-tips/

 

Stay focused on singular goals and objectives.

If you’re exploring the world of marketing, you may have noticed that there are a gazillion directions you can pursue. It’s tempting to do it all at once, crafting a complicated marketing machine in the hopes that you’ll cover all your bases.

Unfortunately, this approach often leads to much more biting off than you can chew. Instead, experience teaches that it’s essential to identify where your most significant impact will be.

Where is the most prominent blind spot in your marketing prohibiting your growth?

Set a performance goal around that one key area, and focus all your resources on the activities and tactics to help you achieve that one goal.

Then, once you’ve made progress in that area, you can expand your efforts or pivot to other initiatives.

Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/small-business-marketing-guide

 

Manage (customer) relationships with a CRM.

Email marketing works best when you’re sending personalized, targeted emails. You’ll want to use a customer database or customer relationship management (CRM) system to do that.

Your CRM stores information about your leads, prospects, and customers, helping you keep track of customer interactions and identify sales opportunities more effectively.

Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/small-business-marketing-guide

Hire a freelancer to help you scale your content.

If you need help creating regular blogs or promotional content, consider hiring a freelancer rather than investing in a full-timer.  It is also best to engage the expertise of a professional instead of doing it yourself.

Freelancers are also available for other areas such as blogging.  Engage a professional videographer and photographer for catchy videos and images.

Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/small-business-marketing-guide

 

5 MARKETING STRATEGIES, GUARANTEED TO WORK IN 2023

 

Build a ‘sensible’ website – If your website does not include well-researched keywords and an e-commerce solution that works, you have started on the wrong foot. Today’s website must answer most if not all the questions that the customer has simply.   If it doesn't, they may skip calling you and utilize the competitor’s product because all of their information is available. 

Also, ensure that your website is optimized for all devices, search engines and conversion.  

 

‘Couple up’ with social media – It is established that if your brand is not on social media, you are already out of touch with a large number of your potential customers. However, simply having a social media presence is not enough. 

Get active, engage and interact with your audience. Be consistent, use eye-catching visuals and interactive videos and drive traffic to your website by always including your link in posts and ads.

 

Tell a friend, to tell a friend – Referral programmes are timeless and guess what, they work. There is no better testimonial than a satisfied customer evangelizing your business to other potential customers. Sweeten the pot by providing incentives for customers who refer. 

You can then track the referrals and evaluate how the business benefits from this activity. 

 

Build out a comprehensive marketing programme – Now don’t get scared… comprehensive does not necessarily mean costly. 

Any good marketing programme should be scalable to your business’s size and budget. The emphasis however should be on touching each customer channel with a programme designed specifically for the customer segment.

 

Engage Video-based content – Video content is becoming increasingly popular. A 2021 survey indicates that consumers spend over 500 billion hours streaming through mobile devices… imagine your video content among the number. Plus, consumers hardly forget memorable video content. It may be a little costly to produce depending on the method you choose, the talent, scripting etc., but video lives forever…