Entrepreneurs Market Themselves – a How to Guide
I am often asked the question “how should entrepreneurs market themselves?” While the majority of entrepreneurs have a handle on their craft, many have no idea how to increase their influence and in turn market their offerings.
Most of them still think it requires outdated tactics, such as advertising on billboards or Radio and TV and once they explore the costs involved, begin to believe that only big companies should do marketing. Another often used strategy is wishful thinking. By this I mean entrepreneurs think to themselves, “Well, I’m the best at XYZ so the word will obviously spread.” It generally doesn’t and unfortunately, wishful thinking doesn’t pay the bills.
Every entrepreneur needs a Million Dollar Influencer strategy to thrive today. Bear in mind, this isn’t a substitute for excellent customer service and quality offerings.
However solid offline marketing + social media marketing + content marketing = successful business.
Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs don’t have a Million Dollar Influencer strategy.
Remember a Million Dollar Influencer needs to have all bases covered.
Offline marketing isn’t useless.
Old school tactics aren’t useless, but remember nowadays most people are checking online instead of the actual Yellow pages. The real problem with offline advertising is that it’s very difficult to measure. It’s hard to tell how many people saw your ad, and as a result, walked into your store or made an enquiry to find out more. However, it is still a good way to build brand awareness, and bypass the noise online.
Social Media is important.
A Million Dollar Influencer works to master one social media platform at a time. The key to gaining visibility on most platforms is by utilizing geotagging (in the case of a physical business) and hashtags that are both relevant to your business and common enough that people will find you. Tagging your location is how you create visibility in your local community. If you don’t, people will find you from all over the world, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if you have an online store as well, but time consuming and frustrating if you don’t. Good listings on directories are a great way to get warm leads. A warm lead is someone who is further along in the sales cycle. If someone is searching a directory, they’re an easier sell because they’re already looking for a solution you offer.
Make sure your business profiles have accurate and up-to-date information, including hours, services and images.
But above everything else, a Million Dollar Influencer knows that content creation is also very important.
Creating great content is the best way to create a viral effect and have people sharing your message. You can do this by posting beautiful images, funny videos or writing interesting blog posts. This is how you differentiate yourself from competitors – by having your personality shine through.
Thanks to a lot of supporting research, there’s no arguing the value of content marketing. It costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about three times as many leads. Content creation and publishing goes hand in hand with Search Engine Optimizing (SEO) and complements each other. Content marketing creates keyword and back-links opportunities.
Good SEO means a good user experience, and effective SEO needs to be updated with fresh content. Remember over 70% of buyers turn to search engines when making purchase decisions. By not having a ranked SEO presence developed via your content means you miss out on the biggest distribution channel out there.
If you think you will have trouble coming up with valuable content ideas the best strategy is to look at what other successful businesses in your niche are doing, and then figuring out how you can put your own spin and or personality upon it.
