Welcome to The Marketing Coach podcast, the go-to destination for savvy small business owners seeking to boost their traffic, leads, and sales without the hassle and headaches.
Revolutionize your business with our latest episode, packed with essential marketing strategies for 2024!
From online profiles to email magic, Angie unveils the universal tactics every entrepreneur needs. Regardless of your industry, these strategies are essential for effective business promotion. Tune in for a blend of practical tips and savvy insights.
Inside this episode, you will discover:
- The crucial importance of online business profiles and listings for enhanced visibility.
- Tailoring social media strategies based on your business type, goals, and target audience.
- Overlooked benefits of email marketing, with practical examples for both service and product-oriented businesses.
- Creating a referral program that turns satisfied customers into brand advocates.
- Strategies for being a guest on podcasts or local news shows to expand your reach.
- Leveraging the power of awards for credibility and increased exposure.
- Hosting effective workshops or online webinars to educate and build relationships.
Links Mentioned in the Episode:
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Keep Listening
- Episode 22: Are Reels Worth Your Time on Social Media?
- Episode 21: 19 Productivity Hacks for Busy Entrepreneurs
- Episode 20: How to Get Organic Reach on Social Media in 2024
Transcript with Timestamps
This transcript was generated with AI assistance and may include minor spelling and grammatical errors. For the best experience, we recommend listening to the audio version of the podcast.
00:05
Welcome to the Marketing Coach podcast. I’m your host, Angie Gensler, and I teach you how to get more traffic, leads, and sales without the hustle or headache. Let’s get started.
00:17
Hey guys. Today we’re going to talk about some core marketing strategies that every single business owner should be utilizing in 2024. Now, these are tried and true strategies that apply to every single business, no matter what your business model is, these are strategies that you need to use to promote your business. Now, before we get started, I wanna clarify that this is not an exhaustive list of marketing strategies. It’s just the strategies that every single type of business can benefit from. And I say this because I want to remind you that every business is so unique and the marketing tactics that you’re going to use are very unique. So in addition to what I share with you today, there will be plenty of other strategies that you need to implement to promote your business. So let me give you an example for a power washing business.
01:11
Wrapping your truck and your trailer with your branding is a really great idea. But if you are a marriage counselor, that would actually be pretty tacky and very embarrassing for your patients. So instead, a marriage counselor would want to consider starting a blog, maybe writing for other publications or even writing a book. So those are all great, make marketing strategies for a marriage counselor, but maybe wouldn’t make sense for a power washing business. So within this list that I share with you today, you won’t find things like wrap your truck with your branding or start a blog. You won’t find strategies like that because they don’t make sense for every single business. So the strategies today will work for any type of business. Okay, so let’s get into the list of strategies. The first strategy is to set up an online business profile and listings and all the places that you can.
02:06
So you wanna add your business information to those local directories, and that’s going to increase visibility and help you reach more customers. Now, really in theory, this should have been the very first thing that you did when you started your business, but if you haven’t done it yet, that’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up. Just hit pause on this podcast and then go set up those directories right now. Now I’m talking about local directories such as Google My Business, Bing Places for Business, and Yelp. And all of those places allow customers to easily find information about your business. So your location, your hours of operation, pictures, reviews, and a lot more just really necessary information they need in order to do business with you. And then on top of setting up those listings, you wanna make sure that they’re all optimized. So if you haven’t gone out to your listings in a while, maybe you did set them up years ago when you started your business, jump out there and check ’em out.
03:05
Make sure that they’re optimized. You’ve got the correct information in there. You’ve got some keywords in there. You’ve got links to your website, your social profiles. Just make sure everything is accurate and complete, and that will help make your business to be found more easily by potential customers. Now, I mentioned those common listings like Google and Bing in Yelp, and those are free and pretty quick and easy to set up. But once you’re done with those, I want you to to do a search beyond those common ones and find more niche specific directories. So let’s stick with that power washer and marriage counselor examples. And I’m actually gonna stick with those two business examples throughout this episode just to make it easier for you as I give you examples. So a power washer would probably want to jump on a site like angie.com. It’s formerly known as Angie’s List, and they would wanna set up a listing on there and possibly even make those financial investments in order to get leads from angie.com.
04:07
And then there’s also special online listings for counselors. You know, if you wanna go find a mar marriage counselor, there are directories out there to help you find one in your city. So if you’re a marriage counselor, you’d wanna make sure that you have listings on those directories. So there are so many online directories for specific industries. So to find one specific to your niche or your industry, just open up Google and type online directories for, and then fill in that blank of whatever it is that’s related to your business or industry. Type that into Google and it’ll pull up a list of different directories and you can go through and research those and see which ones would make sense for you to get a listing for your business. Okay, let’s move on to the next strategy. And that is to leverage social media platforms.
04:57
Now, social media is one of the best and most cost-effective ways to promote your business for free. When there’s billions of people using these social networks every single day, you know, this is a really great opportunity to reach your target audience. So you don’t want to neglect this. Now, the key with social media though, is to select the right platform for your business. So if you’re a power washer and you’re focused on acquiring commercial clients, maybe that’s where you want to place your focus, then I would recommend you jump on LinkedIn and create a profile that would speak to the needs of a commercial client and then start connecting with building managers at different companies all throughout your area. Or if you’re a marriage counselor, Facebook or Instagram would probably be a better option for you. So you would want to start sharing tips and advice and guidance in your posts related to marriage and relationships.
05:54
Maybe you write blog articles or you’ve written a a book, share those articles or share excerpts from your book within your social media posts. Now, the hardest part of marketing your business on social media, no matter the type of business you are, is finding the time and energy to actually create that unique content every single day. So with the previous strategy, which was to set up your online listings, that’s kind of a one and done strategy. You know, you do it once, maybe you check up on it every so often. It requires very minimal time and effort on your part with the social media platforms that is a daily occurrence and requires a lot of time and energy. So if you need some help creating your social media content, you know, 10 times faster, and just take out all the guesswork and all the hassle and the headache from it, then I highly recommend you go check out the social media content club.
06:49
Now, within the content club, you get done for you content, you get ideas planned out for you, you get hashtag lists, you get images that are already created. It is already planned out, created and done for you, and it’s all easily customizable to fit your unique business needs. So I will put a link to the social media content club in the show notes so you can go check it out and you can start a seven day free trial to see if it will work for your unique business. Okay, let’s move on to the next strategy. And that is to email your customers. Now, this might be one of the most important strategies that is overlooked by so many business owners. Now, I think most online business owners, they all know that they need an email list That’s really the lifeblood of our businesses for online business owners.
07:41
But so many brick and mortar businesses or service providers, they don’t have an email list. And maybe they don’t understand why it’s even important. And I cannot tell you how many businesses I’ve interacted with and I have never received an email from them beyond my first purchase. And it, that’s really a huge missed opportunity. And it always makes me sad. You know, there’s times where maybe six months down the road I thought, man, I haven’t once heard of this business, huh? They are really missing out because I probably would’ve come back to them or maybe thought to refer them out to a friend if they would’ve just emailed me at some point. Now, I know a lot of businesses don’t regularly email their customers ’cause they think, well, it just doesn’t really apply to my business. And, and maybe they’re a one-time customer, or maybe they only need your services once every few years.
08:33
So they don’t think to create an email list, but that’s a mistake. So let me give you an example of, of how this could work if you don’t have that traditional online business or a, you know, just this constant recurring transactional type business, how this could work. So let’s look at the power washing example first. So when a new customer schedules an appointment for a service, you could enter them into an email sequence that lets them know what to expect for their service and maybe how to contact you if anything changes. And really this could just be one single email. So maybe that’s all it is, is you send them one single email, but you have some sort of automation that gets triggered when they’re entered into your system. And maybe you have a specific tag for the service and the date of the service and it could trigger that automation.
09:27
Then you could have another automation that goes out once the service is complete. You could have an email that thanks them and asks them to submit a review maybe on Google or Bing, or to complete a survey to let you know how, how they did. And then you could enter them into another email sequence that would contact them every few months. So here’s a few ideas of what you could send them down the road so you could remind them of other services that you could provide and see if they need you to come back to do something else. You could tell them about a referral program that you offer and ask for their referrals. You could share different testimonials or photos of, or videos of jobs that you’ve completed and kind of show them people love to see those before and afters. So share those testimonials in before and after photos.
10:18
You could also tell them about a contest or a giveaway that you’re running, or you could announce a special discount that you’re offering just for past customers. So those are all great reasons to stay in touch with a customer. And all of those are providing your past customers with some sort of value so that it’s not going to be seen like you’re harassing them. Now, with the power washing example, as I mentioned, with that type of service, someone doesn’t need to have their house power washed every single month, probably not even every single year. So be mindful when you’re putting together these sequences of how often you should be contacting them. It shouldn’t be every single month when you have, when you’re providing a service like that, but it should be every three to six months so that they don’t completely forget about you and you’re still staying top of mind so that when the time comes that they need you back, they remember you and they know how to get ahold of you.
11:18
Okay, now let’s look at the marriage therapist for an example of the email marketing. Now, with a marriage therapist, you could send a regular email newsletter once a week or once a month, and that newsletter could go out to all your existing clients that are currently in therapy with you. But it could also go out to people who have maybe shown interest in therapy, but haven’t actually ever booked a session with you. And it could be all of your past clients. So maybe they went through therapy and now they’ve, they’re taking a break or they’ve successfully completed their sessions with you. There is a great opportunity here for even a therapist to have a regular email newsletter. And within that, you could send your latest blog post. If you’re writing blogs, you could share marriage tips every week. You could offer up book recommendations. You could share tools or resources that could help strengthen their relationships.
12:15
You could even share details on your referral program. You could request them to submit a review, or you could give updates on openings in the coming week. Let’s say someone has canceled or your schedule has changed, you could give them an update and say, Hey, I have these openings that have come up this week. If you want one, give me a call or text me and grab one of these spots. So it’s a great way too to make sure that your calendar stays full and you’re getting those bookings. So no matter what type of business you have, if you are not doing a regular newsletter, at the very least, you need to be capturing the email addresses of every single person that interacts with your business and whether or not they do business with you, or if they do business, and then they stop. You need to have some sort of communication with them on a regular basis, whether it’s once a month, every six months, maybe once a year, just have some sort of email that’s checking in with them on a regular basis, reminds them that you are here and kind of keeps you top of mind and fresh in their minds.
13:26
Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that your business isn’t the type that needs an email list, because every single business should be building an email list of customers and checking in with them on a regular basis. Okay, the next marketing strategy is to create a referral program. A referral program is really just a way to encourage your existing customers to refer your products or services to other people. And this is essentially word of mouth marketing, which is really an incredibly powerful form of advertising because it relies on your existing customers and the people in your network to spread the word for you. And this is great because you know someone else’s word, not your own, but someone else’s word of their experience is really seen as a more reliable source than, you know, maybe something that you share. Or if you share a customer’s testimonial, that doesn’t seem to have as much power as if someone heard it directly from a friend or a neighbor.
14:27
So it’s a really powerful marketing and, and it’s a win-win situation because you get new customers, but they also get rewarded. So when you’re creating your referral program, you want to make sure that you have some sort of incentive or reward that is enticing enough that makes them want to refer you out. So you wanna make it a valuable enough reward to motivate them. So for example, a power washer may offer a hundred dollars off your next service for each customer that you refer. So that’s a pretty big discount. That would be powerful. A marriage counselor could offer a free session for each referral. So, you know, a lot of people don’t want to talk about, you know, oh, we’re in marriage counseling. They, there’s tends to be, which is unfortunate, and there should not be, but there tends to be this kind of shame around being in, in marriage counseling.
15:21
So as a counselor, you really would have to make it very much worth their while. So make sure that your incentive is valuable enough that it motivates your customers to want to talk about you. And you also want to keep the referral process simple. If it’s too complicated, people are going to lose interest. So make sure that you provide easy to follow steps for your customers to refer others and make the process as simple for them as possible. Don’t make them have to jump through all sorts of hoops in order to get their reward. Now I wanna talk about affiliate marketing real quickly. If you are an online marketer, more than likely you are familiar with online marketing, and you might even be a part of some affiliate programs yourself. So an affiliate program involves other people, which are called affiliates. It involves them promoting your products and services, and then your affiliates receive a commission for each sale that they refer to your business.
16:21
So instead of offering just some sort of incentive, like you get a free session for each person you refer, you get paid cash for the sales that you refer, and it’s typically a percentage of each sale that you receive. So affiliate programs are really just kind of a more formal version, version of a referral program, and it makes it a lot easier to manage them. So no, really, no matter the type of your business though, you need some sort of a referral program. And it could be just very informal where you just tell your customers, Hey, refer this person and I’ll give you X, Y, Z, and you just manage it on a case by case basis, or it can be much more formal and you have a very structured affiliate program with rules and terms and conditions and payouts and all of that. So whichever you have, it doesn’t matter.
17:14
Just make sure you have some sort of referral program. Okay, the next strategy is to be a guest on relevant podcasts or local news shows. So being a guest on a podcast is an excellent way to get your business in front of a larger audience and to get some more promotion for your business for free. Plus, it is so much easier than starting your own podcast. I can attest to that. So to get started as a guest on other people’s podcasts, first, it’s really important to research potential shows that align with your business. So you wanna find a show that would have a similar target audience to what you have but is not a direct competitor of yours. So you wanna show that either has an overlapping audience as yours or some sort of show that would increase your credibility by being on them. If you told people or maybe you put on your website that you were a featured guest on X, Y, Z show, would it give you more credibility?
18:14
Would people see that as, oh wow, this person must really be an expert. Those are also great types of shows to be on. Now, before you pitch the show, make sure that you’ve listened to some episodes and you’ve done your research on how to become a guest. So you don’t wanna just reach out to the host and give them a cold pitch. If they have a very specific process that they want you to follow, maybe you have to fill out a form on their website. So if you just go send them a cold email, they’re gonna delete it and ignore it. So do your research, figure out how to pitch them, and then if they don’t have direct parameters, then send them an email and pitch one to three different topic ideas that you have that you could discuss on the show. Don’t make the podcast host do all the work for you.
19:02
You need to do the work for them and make it as easy for them as possible. Give them some great headlines and some hooks for the episode that would make them say, oh yeah, my listeners would want this and I want this person on the show. Now, if your business is very highly localized, meaning you only do business in a very certain range or zip code or area of of the world, then you would want to reach out to a local news station or maybe some of your local reporters within your community. So for example, a power washing business would be a highly localized business. So maybe podcasts wouldn’t be the best option and it would be more of a local news station or the newspaper and you could pitch some sort of story to them or offer to be a guest expert on a segment related to your area of expertise.
19:55
So these are great ways to get your business in front of a larger audience for free. Okay, the next marketing strategy is to apply for awards. Now this is another great strategy that will help build your credibility, increase your exposure, and help you gain more customers without spending any more money. And it can also help you network with other businesses in your industry and help you create relationships with potential partners. Now, there are so many different types of awards that you can apply for. There are industry specific awards. There could be regional and even international awards. There’s also a lot of times for a local business, a lot of cities will have like the best of and at once a year, then people throughout the city can nominate certain businesses. So you could be like the best power washer in Kansas City, or the best pizza place in New York, that sort of thing.
20:50
So keep your eye open for different types of awards that you can apply for or you can ask other people to nominate you for. And when applying for award, just make sure that your application is very well crafted and you have given it the time and attention that it deserves. If you’re gonna win an award, you need to take that time to really make sure you have a great application or make sure that whoever is nominating you is well spoken and can write well and create a great nomination for you. Now, winning awards is a really great way to show your potential customers that you are a credible business and that you are trustworthy and you’re the expert in your field. But it only shows that if you then promote that award. So winning the award is great, but once you have won an award, you need to make sure that you are sharing it with people.
21:44
Put it on your business cards, put it on your website, put it in your emails, you know, run a huge promotion. Maybe if you are a local business, have a big billboard about it. You wanna make sure that people know about it. So don’t just win the award and then it goes in a file. You need to make sure you are sharing it out there with the world. Okay, let’s move on to the final strategy that I’m gonna share with you today. And that is to host a workshop or an online webinar. Now, offering free workshops or webinars is a really great way to get in front of potential customers and educate them about what you have to offer. And when you’re creating these classes or these webinars, it’s really important to focus on topics that are relevant to your industry, that provide valuable information to the listeners and that helps your target audience solve a problem.
22:35
And you can use these webinars or these workshops as an opportunity to build relationships with your potential customers and collect their contact information for future marketing efforts. So make sure that you’re getting that email address and you’re getting it in your email list so that you can stay in contact with them. Because if they don’t become a customer from this workshop or the webinar, well maybe they’ll become a customer down the road if you continue to stay in contact with them over email. The great thing about classes or workshops or webinars is it allows you to build trust and build a relationship with your potential customers, and it gives you a chance to demonstrate the value of your products and services. But keep in mind that depending on the type of business that you have, an online webinar or workshop is going to look a little different than maybe the kind that you’re used to attending.
23:30
So for a power washing business, you could create a workshop that’s all about you know how to increase the longevity of your home and you could even invite other vendors to join you and participate. And you could all present different strategies that would help extend the life of someone’s home while at the same time promoting your services. But you don’t have to go that far and make it that intensive. It really could just simply be a video on your website that walks through the benefits of your services. So if you’re a power washing business, maybe on your homepage you have a video that’s showing a before and after of one of your services, and it could talk about the benefits of that service. Maybe it shares how it extends the life of your home or your driveway or your concrete, whatever it may be, that’s being power washed.
24:19
So keep in mind that when I say hosting a workshop or an online webinar, it doesn’t have to be a detailed workshop or a big extensive webinar that they have to sign up for and attend on a certain date. It really could just be a five minute video on the homepage of your website that walks through the benefits of your services. Okay, with that last strategy that wraps up the list of the marketing strategies that every business needs to use in 2024. Now, these strategies are powerful, but remember that they are not an exhaustive list and they should be used in combination with other strategies as well. And before we part ways, remember that perseverance, not perfection, is the key to success. If you keep taking action, your success is inevitable and cheering you on.
If you liked this episode and learned something new, make sure you rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast. And if you haven’t given the Social Media Content Club a try yet, head over to angiegensler.com/content club to start your seven-day trial of done for you, copy and paste content directly from your phone. You’re going to love it. Well, that’s it for today. Have a great day and I will see you in the next episode.
