Managing a budget is often a challenge for small businesses, and optimizing it to go as far as possible is essential for maintaining a high-profit margin. With the proliferation of new websites, tool, services and consultants dominating the online marketing industry, it’s easy to get lost in the woods and spend more money than you need. That’s why it’s important to work smart, not hard, at optimizing your marketing budget.
Be Mobile Friendly
Mobile devices are already the number one way in which consumers engage with content online, and that fact is not changing any time soon. If you’re not already optimizing your content for mobile, that should be the first thing you do. Luckily, doing something about it is easier than ever.
The easiest (and cheapest) way to capitalize on mobile-friendly marketing is with video content. Videos are shown to engage consumers more than any other content, and produces far more conversions and organic visits than image or text content. Using little more than your phone and some off-the-shelf editing software, you can make mobile-friendly videos promoting your products, introducing your team, or sharing funny content.
Check The Data
There’s not much point introducing a bunch of flashy new marketing tactics and tools if you don’t check up to see how successful they are. Conducting research into your customer’s buying habits and how they interact with your products and online store is an essential part of commerce, but it’s also something you should persist at.
“Every time you introduce the slightest change in your marketing, use it as an opportunity for research,” advises Tina Key, a small business writer at 1Day2Write and NextCoursework. “If you’re working on a small budget, every expenditure matters, so make sure you evaluate each purchase by researching its impact on your reach and ROI.”
Put Customer Experience First
The market is flooded with competitors in every industry, each with high-quality products and offering very similar services. The one difference you can make is to provide a unique and enjoyable customer experience. No matter what you’re offering, putting the customer experience first will help your brand stick in the mind of the consumer and is the best way to keep them coming back.
The details of how you improve your customer experience depends largely on your audience—what are they looking for in a buying experience—but you’ll never go far wrong with promoting comfort. That might means a clean online interface, with a clear path towards the products they’re looking for. It might mean having contact details readily available, so they can talk to a customer representative. Make your buying experience comfortable and mo0re consumers will want to engage in it.
Consider The Chatbot
Although having a customer representative available could make for a more comfortable shopping experience, it’s a tactic with necessarily limited scope. Having an AI chatbot on your site or social media page is one way to provide information and assistance to more customers than a small team could physically handle.
Hildebraun Schmidt, a tech blogger at Australia2write and Britstudent, recommends chatbots: “They’re easy to implement and satisfy the lion’s share of customer queries. Working through Facebook messenger or WhatsApp, they’re perfectly placed to engage customers on social media and can boost outreach and conversions.”
Implement Voice Searching
One new technology that has definitely grabbed consumers is the home assistant. Google Home, Siri and Alexa are changing the way consumers relate to online shopping, and Projections say 50% of online searches will be through home assistants by the end of the year. This makes them a perfect avenue to reach out to consumers.
The first step is making sure your website is optimized to appear in voice searches. Take a look at your SEO, your slug and description content and so on. If you want to capitalize on this trend even further, you can invest in an Alexa Skill, which will put your store directly in the customer’s home assistant wheelhouse.
Regina Wheeler is a consultant at Write My Coursework and PhdKingdom.com. She has been involved in many marketing projects. She like discussing and writing on management, marketing and finances. If you want to read more of her work, you can find it on Case Study Help service.
