Running a small business means constantly shouting about your goods and services, ensuring that you are getting a continually positive response. There are all sorts of different direct marketing channels that you rely upon, and it tends to be the case that using a combination of several of them is going to be the best approach to take on.
With this firmly in mind, the following blog post will be taking an overview of several direct marketing channels and looking at the best ones that your small business has the potential to rely upon to achieve the aims that you have firmly set out.
Table of Contents
Organic Search
If you can get people to search out your business organically, this will have a major positive impact on all you do. To begin with, a certain level of trust is bestowed on businesses that are sought out in this way. At the same time, you will also be able to appeal to people directly to solve whatever problem they have typed into the search engine.
Of course, ensuring that you can get people to find your organically is going to be a battle in terms of continually using the right search engine optimization techniques that generate the type of positive response you are looking for.
Also Read: 7 Tips for Selecting a Marketing Strategy
PPC Marketing
As well as getting people to seek you out organically, another one of the good options that you have available in front of you is to use PPC marketing. This is an excellent way of bringing plenty of people to your site, as it will straight away put you up to the top of the rankings. Of course, you cannot simply target any search terms and automatically assume that you will be able to achieve success.
So, it is certainly going to be worthwhile taking your time to do your own research to determine how you will have the biggest impact from the money being spent. Otherwise, it can end up not being the effective campaign that you initially wanted it to be.
Email Marketing
One of the most direct marketing channels that have been around for an extended period but still achieve a high level of success is email marketing. It is easy for people to sign up to either when they visit your website, or when they create an account, and you can tailor the emails to their specific interests, depending on what they browse and add to their baskets.
You can also send offers directly to their inboxes for items on their wishlists, or incomplete or abandoned baskets, just in case it will change their minds, and even send incentives like discounts for birthdays, to bring back repeat custom. Ultimately, if you can keep getting positive responses, you are certainly on a winning ticket with this form of marketing.
Of course, you always have the risk out there that people will unsubscribe, which certainly means that you need to be highly strategic in what you are doing to generate the type of positive impact you are looking for.
SMS Marketing
One of the top advantages of SMS marketing is based on the fact that a lot of people will open their text messages, which means that you have something of a direct channel to your customers. You can also be highly targeted in your approach, as people will usually only want to see and respond to a short text message rather than read reams and reams.
Using Tatango or another similar service can help make the whole process much more straightforward. Again, this type of marketing approach is an art form, but if you can master it, it can bring untold benefits to your organization as a whole.
Also Read: Effective Digital Marketing Efforts
Social Media Marketing
While this is not necessarily as direct as some of the other marketing channels out there, it is certainly going to be worthwhile relying on social media marketing as a way of getting your message out there on a consistent and continuous basis.
For it to be as targeted as possible, you are certainly going to need to be able to create a plan of action that you can stick to. This way, you can measure the results you are getting and make any necessary adjustments and improvements along the way.
All of these are amongst the different direct marketing channels that can be highly useful to get your message out there and ultimately increase the number of sales you are making – or attract a higher number of donations if you are running a nonprofit.
It will certainly be a continual balancing act when it comes to ensuring that you have the right formula that brings in the success you are looking for. Obviously, this could be adjusted and improved over time as tastes continue to change, and marketing channels will inevitably fall in and out of favor.
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