By Rorie Devine, a member of the founding team at GRO.TEAM The Business Growth Agency.
Growing a business is harder than ever at the moment, but don’t give up. Marketing is a test of endurance and stamina and “in any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” (Theodore Roosevelt)
1. Kick Off An SEO Campaign
Search Engine Optimisation is an essential part of your marketing strategy but it’s not a quick fix; it will take 3-6 months before you really see the benefits of what you do. The key to SEO is to pick the right words to target and be found for. If you run a coffee shop there is no point targeting ‘coffee’ to attract the 300,000 people who type ‘coffee’ into google.co.uk every month. It’s too competitive and has no intent. The long tail phrase ‘Coffee shop <town name>’ might be a much better phrase: for example ”coffee shop Beaconsfield” only receives 170 searches a month, but the people who type this are probably 170 people looking to buy coffee in your area every month that really should be coming to your shop.
Once you have selected the best long tail high intent phrases, create pages on your website that feature this phase prominently. There is an SEO Content Optimisation checklist at https://gro.team/seo-agency/ to help you. Don’t be tempted to overdo it; you need to help Google rather than try and game the system. Just make sure you have as many genuine quality links to your website as possible.
2. Create Social Media Pages And Regularly Post Content
Make sure you are active on the best social media platforms for your business, whether that is Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram etc. “Little and often” is the key to social media; you don’t need to write a blog post every day but it’s essential in raising awareness and consideration of your business.
3. Create A Google My Business Site, Post Content On To It And Encourage Reviews
If you are a locally focused business an active Google My Business site is essential. The top tip is to encourage reviews; they will really help your search engine rankings. You will be able to create a short link like this https://g.page/GRO-TEAM/review and you need to share it and encourage its use as much as possible.
4. Don’t Waste Your Money On Google Ads
Perhaps surprisingly I wouldn’t advise creating a Google Ads Pay Per Click campaign unless you really know what you’re doing. It’s very, very easy to create Google Ad campaigns that will empty your bank account at an alarming rate but my sense is that only about 1% of self created campaigns have a positive ROI (Return On Investment). It is possible to create profitable PPC campaigns but you need a lot of experience. Hints and tips are available at https://gro.team/ppc-services/.
5. Think About Growth Coaching and Mentoring
As a wise person once said “If you want to know how to get somewhere ask someone who has been there before”. Working with a GRO.TEAM Growth Coach is one way to get some actionable insight to achieve your growth goals. At GRO.TEAM we don’t try to make a huge margin on our Coaching and Mentoring services and try to keep them as cost effective and accessible as possible. The cost will depend on the individual Growth Coach | Mentor you are working with but the cost is normally in the €/£/$ 50-100 per hour range. More at https://gro.team/growth-coaching/.
6. Bonus Tips
If you have a local business with a very targeted market, experience shows that the most cost effective form of marketing is a branded vehicle (think of the views per day). The next best is leaflets through the door in your target market. New isn’t always best…
Things are challenging at the moment but it’s important to do a little every day to increase awareness, consideration and the customer conversion effectiveness of your business. Create the web and social platforms discussed above and do little and often updates on them – keep moving forward.
All the best with it!
