2 | Getting Started with Marketing 101

Getting Started With The

SMALL BUSINESS MARKETING PLAYBOOKWith a brand‑new small business, you’ll likely be asking yourself how you can find new customers and, more specifically, what will be the best way to market your business to them. Marketing entails promoting and selling your products and services — while there are lots of ways to go about it, some approaches are better fits for small businesses.

To help get you started on building a strong foundation for your marketing strategies, we’ll go through the basics of what to consider:

Getting Started with Email Marketing - 03 >

Getting Started with Social Media Marketing - 06 >

Getting Started with Content Marketing - 08 >

Getting Started with SEM and SEO - 11 >

Getting Started with Referral Marketing - 14 >

Getting Started with Mobile Marketing - 16 >

Getting Started with Event Marketing - 17 >

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Getting Started With

EMAIL MARKETINGEmail marketing can be one of your core marketing strategies, but for it to be effective, your business needs to build up to it. Be aware of these potential challenges and pitfalls:

• Your audience gets dozens of emails every day and could unsubscribe from yours.

• Your email may never be read, either because it isn’t relevant or it gets trapped in a spam filter.

• Your readers may not easily understand the details and benefits of the email.

• You may not get a good response to the email or get clicks on your call to action.

Writing effective emails is a mix of art, skill, and practice. If it’s your first time or you need to rethink your email writing strategy, try following the steps below.

EXERCISE 1

State the desired goal of your email (educating prospects, bringing customers to your site, and so on).

State your audience’s need or want that the email copy will address (think about how the email will resonate with the audience).

Draft a meaningful, nongeneric subject line (something that would catch your attention).

Any links to include (social networks, events, PR, and so on)?

Ask yourself, “Would I click on this?” (Be honest. If it’s a “no,” then start over.)

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For email copy, keep the following in mind:

Keep your paragraphs short and logical, with one main idea in each paragraph.

The body copy should build to a call to action (CTA) at the end.

Use bullets and lists to break up the text, or to convey multiple ideas.

Avoid generic “marketing speak” — keep the tone conversational.

Don’t make false promises or use sleazy gimmicks to get the reader’s attention.

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Here are some more advanced tips for starting out with email marketing.

1. Don’t be afraid to try out and test different wording. For example, use “take a test drive of our product” instead of “buy today!” Testing different versions of content and copy within the email will help you arrive at the most effective version.

2. Put time into understanding what your audience’s needs and wants are, and then address them in the content. This kind of tailored content will get much more consideration by your prospects.

3. Always include one main call to action (CTA) in your message. Whether you most want your email marketing to result in lead generation, closed deals, or educating prospects, you should align every method and action to your stated business goal.

4. Be realistic about metrics. You can analyze open rates, click-through rates, forwards, and social shares all you want, but they don’t necessarily indicate whether or not you’re growing your business.

5. Include links to your social pages, web content, and other relevant news about your business. This includes public relations or events you’ll be attending. Social network content can help drive traffic back to you and increase the odds that new visitors will subscribe to your email list.

6. For a new website/domain name, warm up your IP address before sending high-volume emails. IP addresses start out “cold” and need to be warmed up by gradually increasing the volume (usually over the course of two to six weeks) — sending too many emails right away will flag them as spam. Send under 5,000 emails a day and gradually ramp up to higher numbers.

7. Figure out the right time to send your emails. There’s no perfect time to send an email, but there are times that are better than others. As a general rule of thumb, avoid sending emails over the weekend or on Mondays, over major holidays or typical vacation times, first thing in the morning, or at the end of the day.

For designing email, check out our Email Design Lookbook. It’s full of design inspiration and great advice.

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Getting Started With

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETINGIf your customers or prospects spend a lot of time on social media, marketing via those channels can be a great way to engage them. It’s not quite as simple as making sporadic announcements or sliding into your customers’ direct messages. Social media is most effective with a smart marketing strategy.

EXERCISE 2

Name your goals and objectives.

Just like with email marketing, you need to begin your social strategy by listing your higher-level business goals. Make sure you choose goals and objectives that are specific, measurable, and achievable.

Write your goal(s) and/or objective(s) for social media marketing.

Invest in the social media channels that your customers engage with.

Ask your customers about their favorite social sites, and browse various social sites and industry blogs to see where people talk about your competitors’ brands and products.

Where are your customers online?

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Figure out the meaningful metrics.

Establish your success metrics along with your goals and objectives. Don’t waste time chasing numbers that don’t matter to your business.

What do you care about? Check all that apply.

Likes Shares Engagement Followers

Assign social media roles.

Put someone in charge or divide social media responsibilities among several staff members. Utilize the skills of your employees who engage on social media outside of work.

Who will take on social media responsibilities?

Create your social content.

Your content should be determined by your objectives and goals. Great social content:

• Builds trust and interest in your broader community

• Tells a story about how your products solve your customers’ problems

• Is short and easily digestible

How will your social content resonate with your audience?

Don’t forget: Respond to positive feedback with gratitude and negative feedback with empathy (and try do so within an hour). And remember to follow your followers and acknowledge them.

Want to dive deeper? Check out this blog post on social media best practices for businesses.

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Getting Started With

CONTENT MARKETING Effective content marketing is a tricky initiative for any business, let alone a brand‑new small business. Be aware that a lot of content just adds more noise to a very crowded internet. Follow these steps to ensure the content you’re creating is meaningful and worth the effort.

EXERCISE 3

Identify your goals.

Before developing a content marketing plan, it’s important to identify your overall business goals, map your marketing goals to those business objectives, and think critically about the key messages that will lead to focused and effective content. You can start by laying out the basic components of your business, product, and target audience.

What is your overall goal/mission statement?

Describe your target customer(s) and their basic needs.

How does your product meet these needs?

Briefly describe your company culture and some of your greatest strengths.

What sets your product apart from competitors in your field?

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EXERCISE 4

Create your buyer personas.

Think about what your customers — represented here as buyer personas — are interested in depending on what they know about your product or service. How do you tell a compelling story for someone who knows nothing about your product? What about a prospect who’s considering a competitor? Hash it out in the template below:

EXERCISE 5

Develop and plan content with your goals in mind.

Plan out your content with the goals identified during step one, along with what you know about your buyers from step two (including their channel preferences), and decide which content best aligns with your objectives.

PERSONA 1 STAGE QUESTIONS/CONCERNS

Early

Middle

Late

PERSONA 2 STAGE QUESTIONS/CONCERNS

Early

Middle

Late

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Here are some popular types of content that might be appropriate to work into your content strategy:

• Blog articles: Blog articles position your company as a thought leader, provide best practices for your industry, and highlight updates in your business.

• White papers and e-books: These long-form pieces provide in-depth details regarding your product or industry, and they can capture customer information when gated behind a form.

• Video content: Videos highlight product demos, customer stories, or advertisements for your business. They’re very effective on social media channels.

• Graphics, infographics, and interactive content: Design-heavy visual content is easier for audiences to absorb and digest, and is more easily shared across various channels.

• Case studies: Case studies are especially valuable since they show potential buyers exactly how others are using your product or service.

WEEK OF: THEME:

CONTENT TITLE AUTHOR PLANS FOR PROMOTIONDAY OF THE WEEK

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday/Sunday

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Getting Started With

SEM AND SEOSEM Explained

Search engine marketing (also referred to as pay-per-click and paid search) allows you to advertise your business on search engines like Google. The ads appear at the top and along the right side of the page when a user searches for a specific keyword.

Buying Keywords: Companies “buy” keywords related to their business and products by bidding on them. Keyword bidding is just like it sounds: An advertiser submits the amount they are willing to pay for each keyword, and the ad with the highest bid gets the top position. Ads with lower bids get less prominent placement, for example, at the bottom of the results page.

Choosing Keywords: Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and think about the keywords that they’d type to search for your business online. Start broad and then narrow it down. If your business sells custom surfboards in Beverly Hills, you could start with “surfboards” and “Beverly Hills,” and then expand to “90210 surf shop” and “LA custom surfboards.”

EXERCISE 6

Choose three broad keywords related to your business or product.

Now choose three specific keywords. They can be your broad keywords with more detail or something that more accurately describes your business or product.

Look up these keywords on Google Ads to see if they’re worth bidding on. If they’re not, think about other ways someone might search for your business.

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SEO Explained

Search engine optimization (SEO) can increase the online visibility of your website by strategically fine-tuning and organizing your web content for search engines. It does not involve paying for your content to show up like SEM, but optimizing your original content for the web so that it is more easily found. Here’s how to start with SEO.

1. Choose the right keywords. Choose keywords based on:

• Relevance: What a customer would type if they were ready to buy your product (for example, “buy a car” instead of. “2012 purple Mazda s3 in Ohio”)

• Search volume: Plug your keywords into Google’s Keyword Tool to see their search volume

• Competition: High-volume keywords are competitive and difficult to rank for SEO.Choose keywords that give you an advantage against larger competitors

2. Optimize your content. Emphasize your keywords in your website copy. The higher volume the keyword, the more times it’ll need to be mentioned. Use keywords in your content marketing to build up your presence on search engines (this helps with something called “domain authority”).

3. Include keywords in page titles and URLs. This will help Google recognize your web pages in relation to the keywords. For example, if your page title is “Purple Widgets Are the Future,” your URL could be www.yoursite.com/purple-widgets-are-the-future.

4. Ask for external linking. This helps a lot with domain authority — a grade on your website address to determine if it’s a credible source of information (which gives your site higher search rankings). Seek out relevant websites and ask them if they will link back to your site or blog while using your targeted keywords. Google likes to see relevant sites referring to your site and will bump you up in the search results for those keywords. The more external links, the higher your ranking will climb.

5. Include keywords in video and image names. Search engines will only recognize images and videos by how they’re named on your website. Be very specific, for example, if the photo is of a woman holding a purple widget, name the image “woman-holding- purple-widget.”

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EXERCISE 7

Take your keywords from the previous SEM exercise and write them out in an advertisement for your product or business. Tell a short, simple story about your business that could be easily read on a webpage or in a blog article.

Your takeaway from this exercise should be: How can I incorporate searchable keywords when explaining my business? It might be easier with broader keywords, but to be really optimized for SEO, you should figure out how to work in your more specific keywords as well.

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Getting Started With

REFERRAL MARKETING Referral marketing is a strategy that involves rewarding your customers for promoting and spreading the word about your business. Here are a few channels where your customers can become your advocates:

• Friends and family

• Social media sites

• Influencers (via blogs and social media influencers)

• Customer review sites (like Yelp, Google Places, and G2 Crowd)

• News publications

EXERCISE 8

Before putting a referral marketing strategy in place, you should have concrete answers to the following questions:

What do you want your customers to say about you?

Who would you want your customers to refer you to (your ideal target customers)?

What perks would be memorable and satisfying to those who refer your business (discounts, gift certificates, access to exclusive events, and so on)?

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Here are some examples of effective referral strategies for small businesses:

• Offering a digital coupon as an incentive for an online referral

• Offering a discount to a referring customer if their referral requests a quote

• Leaving coupons in other supportive local businesses

• Having a “check-in” option on a business listing site that results in an immediate discount

An effective referral marketing plan builds both brand and customer loyalty. If your current customers are satisfied with your product or services, offering them a discount or an exclusive experience for a successful referral will build your business up even more for them.

More tips for getting started:

• Be clear and concise about what you’d like customers to do and what the incentive is.

• If you’re spreading the referral promotion via email, advertise the promotion in the subject line and make the CTA (call to action) eye-catching and easy to find.

• Use your size as a small business to your advantage. Customers love to help out the new folks, so show your personality and make an impression. Referrals can be a great opportunity for brand building.

• Keep in mind with business listing sites that when opening yourself up to customer reviews, you run the risk of negative reviews. Bad reviews can be helpful for improving your business, but they don’t make for great referrals. Business owners can mitigate bad reviews by responding directly to each review. Be sure to provide an apology and/or context that addresses the main issues.

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Getting Started With

MOBILE MARKETING If your small business conducts a lot of business over the phone, mobile marketing can be a great strategy. Follow the steps below to get started.

• C heck to see if your website is mobile-friendly. You’ll want customers to be able to easily follow a link from an email, social media, or SMS. Google offers an easy-to-use tool to check: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

• Make sure your emails are mobile-friendly. Key elements include:

• Short headers

• Large text and buttons (finger tapping size)

• Single column layout

• A text version of your email, just in case customers and prospects don’t accept HTML on their phones (a rare occurrence these days, but it still happens)

• Links in your emails that go to a mobile-ready destination. If your email service provider offers mobile email templates, use them.

• List your business on business listing sites. Many mobile users will come across your business via a listing site. You should fill out the information about your business in full — include contact details, open hours, and so on — and include as many photos and videos as they’ll allow. Use their coupons and deal features as well. Popular listing sites include:

• Google Places

• Yelp

• Bing Places

• Yahoo! Local

• Merchant Circle

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Getting Started With

EVENT MARKETING If you’ve made it this far into the playbook, you’ve probably noticed a common theme: your first your first step should be figuring out your goals. Guess what the first step is for event marketing as well?

EXERCISE 9

Think hard about what the point of your event marketing will be.

It could be brand awareness (aka building buzz and recognition), meeting prospects, demoing your product, collecting new leads, and so on. These goals will determine how you should go about your event marketing.

What do you want to accomplish with event marketing?

Consider what would be the best events for your business.

Would it be an event you’d put on yourself, or would you need to hire additional services for help? Could it be a third-party event, like an industry conference? Can it be hosted virtually? Think about how your small business fits in your industry and community (tie it back to your many marketing goals).

Write down three ideal events that you’d like to market your business or product at.

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Before putting on the event, think about how you’ll promote it.

Will you send out emails? Advertise on your social pages? Put up flyers around town? Think about where your customers are and where your promotional content will get the most eyes on it.

Write down three ways that you’ll promote your event (or your attendance at an event).

Need inspiration for what to do for your event? Check out our blog article on impactful event content.

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