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So you’ve got a great product, offer or service. You’ve got a good number of loyal customers, but you want to take things to the next level. Drive more revenue, increase sign ups, boost renewals and send churners packing, but how can you do that?
These are the 4 small ideas that will make a big impact on your business:
- Content comes first
- Savvy PPC
- Get social
- Campaign, campaign, campaign
Content comes first
“Stories give colour and depth to otherwise bland material, and they allow people to connect with the message in a deeper, more meaningful way.” – Peter Guber
A recurring theme of my blog is content. That isn’t by accident. In fact, that’s because it is what runs through our lives, whether we acknowledge it or not.
When you talk to friends, family or loved ones, you’re telling a story. When you get up every day, brush your teeth, have breakfast and head into the day ahead, that’s a story.
It stands to reason that we enjoy storytelling. Now, that doesn’t mean we all like reading, otherwise Audible wouldn’t be a thing. Similarly, that doesn’t mean we all take to watching a 120-minute film, otherwise, Tik Tok wouldn’t be so popular.
My point is, you need to start creating content in the form (eBook, video, blog, list, audio etc.) which your eventual customers will enjoy.
That is why search engines like Google and Bing exist. Don’t listen to ‘gurus’ who tell you they can hack Google’s rankings and get you to rank first.
What gets traffic to your site, and therefore your business, is good quality content that links back to who you are, your business and your offering.
It’s a small idea, indeed, but take out pen and paper and think about your product/business, what the theme is, and then get to creating content.
Here are some ideas for an example company:
Cleaning agency
Have a think about some tips for homeowners to get their houses looking *nearly* as clean as what your team of cleaners can do.
Unveil what products you use, create a step by step infographic of how to tackle a particularly challenging mess.
The idea here is to show you know your business, empower your audience to plug the gap if they don’t/can’t have cleaners in, and let them come to the conclusion they need you.
Why? Well, it will come down to the effort they put into cleaning being too much, or the quality of the cleaning not being good enough.
Either way, you’ve shown how to do something, which builds their view of you as an expert, and then let them reach their own conclusion on your value to them. Win-win.
Savvy PPC
PPC (pay-per-click) isn’t a new idea. It’s simply the case of creating adverts on the likes of Google, Bing, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Tik Tok etc., which drives traffic to your website or, in the case of the above, to your content.
PPC gets your name in front of the people who are showing an active interest in what you are offering. It works on the basis of:
1) Creating search-based ads (where someone types a question into Google) or image-based (where you show an ad based on someone’s behaviour or interests)
2) You provide a budget to a campaign that contains multiple ads
3) That budget is split between those ads (automatically or manually, your choice)
4) You can decide a cost per click (how much you are willing to pay to get someone to click on the link in the advert) or how many people see it (what we call impressions)
5) You send the traffic to a particular page on your site promoting your product or some content
6) That page should be distraction-free – so, if I want you to download a how-to guide, the only thing you can do on that page, is complete the form to download the item, or close the windowPPC is a very effective tool, but all too often people rely on it as opposed to building up their organic profile (meaning SEO, AKA the traffic which reaches your site by finding you in search results). In fact, you need to do both at the same time.
Make sure you have a compelling content offer, a page to direct people to which is made for your audience, you capture their details and then push them into an email nurture (more on that soon).
Starting on PPC isn’t difficult. Try with a budget of £50-100 a month and see how it goes. But, it is another spinning plate to consider, so you may want to look at external help from marketing agencies to optimise your spend and get the best results.
Get social
With great content created, you need to distribute it. How? Social media.
That’s right, get to creating your social profiles on platforms such as:
But don’t just choose any random platform. If you’re more in the field of offering business consulting, LinkedIn is likely for you. Personal Trainer? Facebook and Instagram are your go-to. Think, logically, who is my audience and what platform will they probably use?
Here is a highly useful piece of research from Sprout Social, gauging which social platform is used less often, once a day or several times a day by adults.
And don’t simply post when you feel it’s best. If you have (and you should) Google Analytics, look at when the most traffic reaches your site.
This gives you a pretty solid understanding of when your target audience is most active on a mobile, laptop or tablet.
It’s likely they’re scrolling through their social feed too, so make sure you’re there at the right time.
Once you’ve got an idea of the content, audience behaviour and platform of choice, it’s time to get building a social calendar and posting – but remember, you need to post content that *always* pushes people to your site, your content or social platform.
Here are some ideas:
- Promote your latest blog
- Highlight customer testimonials
- Rarely, and I mean this, rarely post something about buying from you unless it is a compelling offer. People don’t directly come to social media to buy, but if you want to sell, let the audience reach this conclusion themselves by making it a call to action within some content you’re offering
- Conduct a survey / poll
- Ask for people’s opinions on something which may be controversial / a different view from the norm
- Post some news from another site that relates to what you offer. Again, give your opinion.
Campaign, campaign, campaign
Tying points one through three together is this – the campaign.
Define what you want to achieve, who you’re going to target, the means of reaching them, and then measure and refine as you go along.
The biggest friend to you is email. Whether that is promoting your content to your email database through a one-off email, nurturing that database once they’ve downloaded some of your content, or a monthly newsletter, email remains ever powerful.
Here are some ideas to get you on the road to success:
- Promotional email. Take that content or special offer and target people in your database who you know will love to hear about what you’ve got to say. You can turn that into a 2 or 3 email series if you have multiple pieces of content that all tie into the offer. No email database? Skip to 2.
- Nurturing emails. Use PPC and content on your site to nudge people down the path of signing up to your newsletter, to watch your webinar or anything that will get people to offer their information to you. Once you’ve done that, build a series of emails to send to that person post form submission. Keep it simple, thank them for downloading, then provide more content that relates to what they’ve downloaded, giving them more reason to trust you
- Newsletter. You’ve built your database, now it’s the time to send out a monthly newsletter, the perfect avenue to highlight your new content, offers and news. But it doesn’t have to be insular, also think about the news / content you’ve shared on social from other websites. That shows you’re not afraid to acknowledge the world out there and be an unbiased, trustworthy source of information!
Final thoughts
Not all ideas have to be groundbreaking to make a difference. These are just a handful of small concepts which can lead to big wins for your business. It is up to you to put these into play for your company, but with the right investment (time, effort, finance), they’ll pay dividends and make a big impact on your business…
