Strategic Marketing Plan

Successful local businesses and entrepreneurs know that strategic follow-up for lead generation and repeat business is critical. It is much easier and less costly to sell to an existing customer than to acquire a new one. This is where strategic follow-up via email, SMS, and phone messaging can be particularly beneficial.

Strategic email marketing campaigns, automations, and newsletters can be highly effective in strengthening a business brand and generating profits. Emails sent to an opt-in or customer list are hot leads and loyal customers who are more likely to open and respond positively to your valued messages and offers.

Similarly, customers receiving coupons, discounts, special offers, white papers, and customer loyalty rewards via bulk SMS text marketing can be a source of substantial repeat business.  Unlike email, which can get caught in spam filters or remain unopened for days, 98% of text messages are opened, and most within a few minutes to hours.

When your lead generation and sales are through live events or direct mail, building a phone database of customers with use of automated phone messages can be an effective follow-up strategy.

Unlike traditional forms of advertising where the costs are high and you pay regardless of how the ad performs, pay per click advertising is based on click performance. This means that you only pay when there is a click-through from the ad to the designated landing page.

Google AdWords, YouTube advertising, and Facebook provide good PPC advertising opportunities for local businesses and entrepreneurs. Ad remarketing is a low cost strategy in which the same PPC ad is shown at a very low cost in high traffic popular sites to someone who originally clicked on the main ad.

Unfortunately, many businesses blow through a PPC advertising budget quickly without getting a good return on their investment. This is commonly due to mistakes with ads, campaign setup, and/or landing pages. Working with a company who has expertise in Google AdWords, YouTube, Facebook, and remarketing programs can prevent these disappointing results and yield a good return on investment.

Timely and positive media exposure for your business is a great strategy for strengthening your brand and generating quality free leads and customers. When you attract the attention of the media because of something that is newsworthy and trending, you achieve instant credibility.

Through media exposure, you can set yourself apart from your competition by solving a big problem for a large number of people or businesses. Likewise, your contribution at a major community event will not go unnoticed by the media. Large donations, fundraising, or volunteering for a good cause can help build your brand and give you recognition for your community support.

Webinar events have proven to be the most cost-effective and profitable venture for entrepreneurs online. Savvy local businesses in many industries are also capitalizing on this strategy. Through webinars and the right strategy, they capture market share, grow their brand, and realize substantial monetary gains for a very small investment. The timing for online events could not be better. Since the pandemic, almost every business and consumer have acquired a comfort level with Zoom for online meetings and other events.

Successful webinars require a strategic plan that consists of prelaunch, launch, and post launch activities that produce and maintain excitement, motivation, and sales with value-added bonuses during a time limited period. An important part of the plan is to build permission-based registration lists that allow for ongoing communication and promotions via email marketing.

Although live events have declined in popularity since the pandemic, many businesses have resumed a direct mail approach to fill rooms with targeted prospects in their local area. Other effective strategies for live local events is to include allied businesses as presenters. Using synergy through strategic offers for each represented company can be highly productive and profitable.

Positive customer reviews are a powerful local business online marketing strategy. They are an important driver of ongoing lead generation and new customer acquisition. There is no doubt that people are much more likely to select a business on Google, Facebook or Yelp when it is associated with positive ratings and reviews.

Even though you provide exceptional services, customers will not automatically take the initiative and time to hunt for your presence on Google, Facebook, or Yelp or other review site and add their star rating and comments. But when they are presented with precise links with a message requesting their feedback, you are much more likely to earn their valuable online feedback.

Strategies to automate the review request process can greatly enhance your efficiency and effectiveness. This can be for a single review request per customer, or feedback with each purchase or customer service provided.