Tag Archives: Small Business Marketing

Effective Hook Marketing Strategies to Capture Attention

Hook marketing is a way of immediately attracting the attention of your audience, by appealing to their emotions, interests or needs.

If you’re fishing, your hook will be a literal hook that will catch a fish. In marketing, it’s a virtual hook that reels in consumers to buy your product or service or look at something you’re offering. 

The hook can be many things, such as a phrase, a video, an image, or anything that instantly attracts the attention of your reader.

It’s one of the most effective strategies. If you think about it, when you are scrolling through social media, you’ll see hundreds of posts and stories, but there will be some that will make you stop and look – what is it that captures your attention? It’s the hook that the person or business uses that stops you in your tracks, so you click to see more.

To better explain, here are a few examples of phrase hooks:

  • What happens next will shock you!
  • Want to know the secret?
  • The one thing you’re missing.
  • This is what everyone’s been talking about

These kinds of hooks call out to your natural curiosity. You’re not necessarily interested, but you click anyway! 

Why is so effective?

In today’s world, most people have a very limited attention span, as they are exposed to hundreds, if not thousands of advertising messages every day. When you’re on social media, and you’re aimlessly scrolling, how many posts do you actually remember? The chances are it’s very few. That’s why it’s so hard to attract attention to your particular brand – there is just so much competition. But if you CAN capture that attention, you are onto a winning streak. A good hook can help you stand out from the crowd and gives you the opportunity to connect with potential buyers or followers. And, as you saw with the example hooks, driving curiosity automatically makes the reader want to know more.

Types of hook

There are various types of hooks, so let’s delve a little deeper:

Emotional

If you use emotion as a hook, you’ll be evoking feelings of happiness, sadness, nostalgia, fear, hope, anger etc. The emotion you decide to evoke will depend on what you’re trying to achieve with the content you want attention drawn to.

An example would be Coca-Cola. They have used several different hooks:

  • The diet coke break – we all remember the muscly man stripping off his shirt as it’s soooo hot, then downing a coke. All the women in the nearby office are swooning at the sight of a semi-clad man drinking coke. You don’t necessarily get hooked intentionally, but you’ll remember it!
  • They also use the ‘holidays are coming’ slogan with the big red lorry near Christmas, advertising their coke. This evokes feelings of nostalgia, excitement, and happiness as Christmas is coming!

Another example, for me, would be the Go Compare ads with the opera singer. I found this ad extremely irritating and annoying, but I remember it!

If you want to use an emotional hook, you need to first identify what emotion is relevant to your products or services. Then use stories, images, or videos to convey that emotion to your audience. Just ensure that the emotion you are trying to evoke is relevant to your brand.

Curiosity

I’ve already talked a bit about this one. Curiosity is probably one of the strongest hooks you can use. Everyone is naturally curious and if you can use this in your hook, you will be able to drive your audience to want to find out more about your products or services.

Examples could include books and films.

  • An author will write a short paragraph on the back of a book to describe the story in brief. It doesn’t give away the plot but gives just enough information to pull the reader in to want to know more…so they buy the book to read it.
  • When a film is about to released, there is usually a trailer. You’ll have been in the cinema and seen trailers for films ‘coming soon’ or seen trailers on sites like Netflix. These give an exciting part of the film, be it scary, sad, fast moving etc – this is designed to pull you in and make you want to watch the film. It’s a hook that piques your curiosity.

If you want to use a curiosity hook, you’ll need to think of something that your products or services do to solve a challenge or a problem, or a product that has a quirky or unusual benefit. Then create content that tells them a little and gives some of the answer, leaving the most important part unanswered or unsolved. This compels your audience to want to know more, so they will read your article, or go explore your website or your products/services. You’d need to use an eye-catching title or heading to get them in!

Fear Factor

This kind of hook uses fear in two ways.

  • The first is fear of personal safety, to highlight a potential threat or risk. We see this all the time on TV ads and programmes. How many of you have a ring camera? Ads are constantly telling us that we need one of these so we can feel safer in our own homes. You can see who is at the door before you open it and you can even talk to people on your phone who are at the door, when you’re not home. The camera is an added bonus in that it can deter criminals and if it doesn’t, it can capture their image on camera.

    It also uses fear from your online perspective – you need this software and that software to protect your PC, phone, iPad, data etc. If you ignore it, it could cost you much more than you think.
  • The second is fear of missing out – FOMO – an example of this would be getting the latest phone from a particular brand. You don’t need the new iPhone, but it’s got SO MANY NEW AND AMAZING FEATURES, if you don’t, you’ll be hugely missing out. It’s likely that the phone you got three or four years ago – or longer in my case (!) – is perfectly adequate, but you’re persuaded by the very clever advertising that you’re going to be left behind in technology if you don’t upgrade.

This is quite a difficult hook to use for a small business, and you’d need to absolutely deliver what you’re promising in your hook, so not one I’d advise!

Storytelling

I’ve said this before, but everyone loves a good story. We’ve grown up with stories, be it from books, our parents or grandparents telling us stories about when they were young. Storytelling is an immensely powerful way to capture the attention of your audience and one that is highly effective for small businesses.

A story can be anything you want it to be. It can be sad, happy, informative, or entertaining. Above all, it must be relevant to your business. But if you can find a way to tell a story around one of your products or services, you will capture the attention of your audience, which will make that product or service very appealing.

That’s why a lot of big brands use celebrities to advertise their products – they show a celebrity at home doing ‘normal’ things with their families and oops there’s an accident and something gets spilt on a dress or shirt.

Oh no! Will the stain come out?

Of course, it will – with the new super duper stain removing product!

Cut to celebrity pulling previously mentioned item out of the washing machine and hey presto – it’s white again!

And all this happens in just a few seconds, but this captures your attention, and you’ll subconsciously remember that product.

The key here is to keep your story short and simple and relevant, so your audience can easily identify with it – something that has impact but is memorable.

Scarcity

This kind of hook works on the basis that people in general want things that are in short supply – and it links into FOMO (fear of missing out).

If you buy online from some of the big sellers, such as Amazon, you’ll often see a message saying, ‘only 1 left in stock’, or it might say ‘limited offer only’. This creates a sense of urgency encouraging buyers to make their decision quickly!  

Anyone can use this hook, whether you’re a small or large business, but the only caveat I would include is that only do it if the offer is genuine. I often see ads for something that only has 2 days left to make my mind up to buy – only to find it a week or two later still saying the same thing. If you have a limited time offer, state the limited time date, and stick to it, or you might find you lose the trust of your customers. The same applies to ‘only one left in stock’ – only say that if it’s genuine.

Personally, this is my least favourite hook, but it is popular and does work well.

Problem/Solution   

This is exactly what it says on the tin. You have identified a specific problem that your customers have – and your product or service is the solution to that problem. This is an effective hook if advertised properly, as you can clearly show the value of your products/services and prove that they work. A case study or previous customer review can help with the proof and then you have a good hook.

To use it for your business, you must identify your customers’ problems or pain points – present that problem and show how your product or service is the answer!

Visual

Visual hooks reel your audience in with a striking image or a brilliant video – both will capture their attention. Visual hooks notoriously provoke an emotional response and are used to spark curiosity.  

Ensure that any images or videos you use are your own, wherever possible; play with colours and shapes to make them really eye catching and use them sparingly, so they don’t become wallpaper to your brand. The visual hook must align with your brand and messaging, so once you have that sorted, you’re good to go!

I hope this has helped you understand a bit more about hooks and how they work.

If you need any help with your marketing or talking through or brainstorming ideas for hooks for your business, get in touch and we can have a call.   

How to promote your customer loyalty programme

In one of my previous blog posts, I covered the pros and cons of having a customer loyalty programme. So, if you have decided that it is the way to go, how do you go about promoting it to your target audience? This blog looks at the strategy for loyalty marketing and how you can get the best out of it for your small business.

What is loyalty marketing?

Loyalty marketing is about encouraging your customers to buy from you over and over again…it’s keeping them coming back for more.

It can apply to both existing, active customers and past customers, as well as new ones. Your strategy is to incentivise them to buy from you more frequently. The obvious example is a coffee shop. They give you a card, which you get stamped every time you buy a coffee. When your ten stamps have been completed, you get a free coffee. Everyone loves a freebie, even if they have to work for it.

Why is loyalty marketing so important?

We all like to feel that we’re appreciated…I know that I do. It’s even nicer if the business you buy from shows their appreciation by giving you something in return. You are being rewarded for your loyalty, which feels great.

The first step to achieving this is to make your customers feel valued and acknowledge them for their continued support. However, this isn’t easy; customers are not tied to you or your business and can jump ship for another brand at the drop of a hat. Another brand may be more accessible, may be a local business or friend. Sometimes customers just feel like a change and want to try something new. But there are some marketing strategies that can help you keep your customers for as long as possible.

Make it simple  

Keep your customer loyalty programme as simple as possible. You could add a sign up at your website checkout and give an immediate benefit of some kind. It could be a small discount off their next purchase.

Also make sure that it doesn’t matter what your customer spends, they can still join the loyalty programme. So, whether they spend big bucks or small change, they are all treated equally.

Add value 

Take your time to decide what customer rewards you want to give. You still need to think about your profit margins, so don’t go mad! You might go with ‘buy one, get one free’ on certain items, or a straight-forward 5% off their next purchase. Or, like the coffee house example I gave earlier, your customers have a physical card that they get stamped every time they buy an item. Then they get one free after the tenth item is bought. Obviously the coffee shop idea wouldn’t be appropriate for most businesses – only those who sell something fairly cheap in the first place…coffee is ideal, so this idea is great for cafes and restaurants, juice bars and sandwich shops.   

Give new members a gift

When someone joins the loyalty programme, give them a small gift as a welcome. This will reinforce the value of the programme, and hopefully they will pass this on to their friends and family.

Give an incentive to introduce a friend

If a customer refers a friend, who goes on to buy from you, you could give them an incentive gift.

Personalise the programme

If you are sending out details of the programme, use the customer’s first name and thank them for being a loyal customer. Personalising the email, phone call, or however you choose to do it, makes your customer feel special and it also makes your email feel bespoke if it has their name on it.

Remember your customers’ birthdays and send them an e-card or an email to wish them a good day.

Don’t forget to say ‘thank you’ to customers for their continued support.  

Let your customers know that you listen 

There is nothing more frustrating, as a consumer, than sending off an email, or sending a message on social media, and your comments are ignored. So don’t do this! Make sure you reply to everything in a positive and friendly manner.

Get customer feedback

This goes hand in hand with listening. Providing your customers with a way to leave feedback is imperative to finding out why they stay loyal to your brand and also, why they leave to go elsewhere. Make sure there is somewhere on your social media sites for them to leave feedback and also on your website.

Listening to what your customers have to say can be a very positive experience, but inevitably you will also get some negative comments. However, so long as you answer them straight away, you can often turn that around. Sometimes feedback will give you new ideas, or ideas on how you can improve your current products or services.

Most customers tend to only leave feedback if there is a problem, so it’s about encouraging them to leave it when they’re happy! If you do get a negative review, don’t try and hide it or delete it – work on the problem with your customer and hopefully they will leave another one stating how you solved their problem.

Feedback can be obtained via a customer satisfaction survey. With this, you are in control of the questions, and it is a straight forward and easy way to gain opinions on your products and services…and the overall customer experience they receive with your brand. If you do opt for this, keep it short and sweet – they won’t want to take more than a couple of minutes to complete it, so just ask a few questions and if possible, opt for multiple choice answers as that makes it even easier.

You could offer an incentive to complete your survey or to leave a review. The most important thing to think about is the timing of your survey or the asking for a review. You need to give your customer time to use your product or service. So just be aware of that.

Promote at every opportunity

This means at every single customer touch point.

  • Website
  • Phone calls
  • Text message
  • At the till if you have physical premises
  • When you send out an order, put details in the order with the invoice
  • Blog about it
  • Put your programme on your social media sites – ask your followers to share your post
  • Tell customers about it in email or newsletter
  • Promote it in adverts about your business
  • Consider a paid ad on Social Media
  • Mention it in podcasts and videos
  • Maybe have a partnership with another business that compliments yours and share the running costs

Talk about your customer loyalty programme to anyone and everyone who will listen.  

Conclusion

Always remember that customer loyalty goes way beyond giving out a loyalty programme or rewards…or even engagement with them on social media.

It’s about you letting your customers know that you really value their custom, and appreciate the support they give to your business.

Finally, make sure that you use the same images and tone of voice in all interactions about your customer loyalty programme, so your particular, branded programme stands out and is easily recognisable.

If you want a customer loyalty programme for your business and don’t know where to start, I can help, so just drop me an email or message on my Facebook or Intagram page.

Why use video for social media content?

Video is becoming increasingly popular on social media. It is a great tool for small businesses to help you highlight your brand, build loyalty with your customers, and attract new customers.

People are on their phones or devices all the time and they love watching videos – you’ve only got to look at how some of the TikTok dances have become a thing to see why. And who remembers the iced bucket challenge that was around a few years ago – it went viral with people from all over the world joining in and posting their own videos.

So why is video so important for small businesses?

Well, primarily, it’s good for your brand as video makes it more visible to a huge number of people. If you make a video using your products/services, it’s a good idea to use a logo watermark, as this will help establish that it’s your brand.

It also draws your audience’s attention. A video can grab attention quickly, compared to wordy text. The only problem is keeping it short, sweet and to the point, as people don’t have a long attention span! But practice makes perfect.

Video tips

So, when you make your video, here are some tips to keep in mind…

  • Ensure that the content is relevant to your target audience and is engaging enough to grab their interest.
  • Include headings and short descriptions, using SEO keywords and phrases so they will be found in a search.
  • Include relevant hashtags and a call to action.
  • Ensure that your video can be shared.
  • Think about using a video on your website or on your landing page for email sign up, so that your potential audience can learn more about you and your products/services in a more engaging way.
  • Try and inject some humour into your video where you can.
  • Show behind the scenes video – this helps your potential customers to see you have a transparent brand – people are generally nosy, so they like to see where and how you work.
  • Having yourself speaking in a video shows you are human, and people can engage with you, the business owner.
  • Videos can be made at any time and anywhere, so if you think of something you want to tell your followers and you’re at a coffee shop, go ahead and do it!
  • Video is low cost and more likely to remain online, available, and searchable for longer than ordinary text posts.

The most efficient types of video content for businesses are demonstrations, live performances, testimonials, ads of events and brand awareness, so it’s a good idea to keep that in mind.

You don’t have to be in the video and speaking if you don’t want to – you can show products or services with a musical background without actually having to appear in person.

Keep an eye on your engagement.

Just like any form of content that you put out, it’s vital to keep an eye on the engagement your video brings. You can see what’s working and what’s not! Then if you decide you want to use video for a paid ad, you’ll know what will work before you shell out any money.

You can see your engagement stats through the insights on all your social media channels, so it’s worth checking this out regularly for all your posts – not just for video.  

Conclusion

Video is a great addition to your social media marketing strategy. It helps your brand recognition and can help you reach audiences you may not reach with text/image only posts.

Just ensure that your video content is relatable and relevant to your target audience and just give it a go and see what happens! I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Voice Search Optimization Strategy

Voice search optimization is becoming more popular and is going to really take off, big time, in 2025. It is the process of optimizing your website pages so that they appear at the top of search engine results when people use a verbal search to find what they want.

What exactly is voice search optimization?

In simple terms, if you want to find something on the internet, you can use voice search instead of typing in your request.

So, if people are doing this, you need to make sure that your website is optimized for voice search so there is the chance your web pages will be read out aloud by a voice search device. Even putting it simply sounds complicated! But it’s really not…

How does it work?

Loads of you will have experience of Alexa or Siri or you may even have used a voice search device to talk to Google.

So, you say ‘Alexa – how do I xxxxxxx’

This is voice search.

Then Alexa replies to you by reading an answer found on a search engine.

Siri is slightly different – for a lot of queries, Siri won’t read the answer to you but will tell you where you can find the answer on the internet – an answer that best fits the query you asked.

Again, when you ask Google a question, it’s different again. If you ask Google something on a device like Google Home, it will often tell you ‘I’ve sent a link in your Google assistant’ – then you have to go to your Google assistant to get the link and find your answer. 

Voice search optimization strategy

With more and more people using this form of search, a strategy for this is going to be vital for your business over the coming years.

According to WebFX, more than 55% of people use voice search to find businesses near them – this could be restaurants, cinemas, places of entertainment etc. But more are using it for local businesses for things they want to buy locally too.

More than a billion voice searches happen every month, and it is estimated that voice search will account for 50% of all searches in 2025, so if you have a small business you could be missing out on potential customers if you are not optimizing for voice search.

How do you optimize for voice search?

Voice search optimization is obviously linked to search engine optimization and the kinds of keywords and phrases that you put on your website, which will help people searching physically or verbally for what you offer.

There are a few ways you can optimize your content on your website. Let’s have a look…

Optimize for verbal queries!

When someone types out a query, it’s not going to be the same as when they ask a question verbally.

Example – Someone fancies making garlic bread.

They might type – ‘how to make garlic bread’ on their laptop.

On voice search, they may say ‘How do I make garlic bread?’

It’s only a subtle difference, but when someone asks a question, they’ll ask as if they’re talking to a real person – it’ll be more conversational.

Typed – ‘Recipes for chocolate cake.’

Voice search – ‘Show me some recipes for different kinds of chocolate cake.’

With voice search you are giving a command to your voice search device, (Alexa, for example).

So, for your website to be optimized for voice search, you need to optimize for conversational queries, just as you would find keywords for search engine optimization.

Let’s stick with chocolate cake – because we can (!) – let’s brainstorm questions people may have…

  • How do I make chocolate cake?
  • How do I make chocolate fudge cake?
  • What’s the best recipe for a chocolate fudge cake?
  • What do I need to make a chocolate fudge cake?

There will be all sorts of questions people could ask which are related to your products or services, so you need to have a good brainstorm to decide what questions people might ask.  If you need help with this you can use Google – type in one of the questions you have, and other questions will automatically appear under ‘people also ask…..’ in the search. This will give you ideas.

Then you need to ensure that these questions are incorporated into your website copy.

WHAT A FAFF!

I KNOW!

But important to stay ahead of the game!

Google Business Profile listing

I’ve talked about this before, and this is something that is a no brainer to pick up local business. If you haven’t set up your Google Business Profile listing yet, it’s worth doing it now. It’s free and will help you get found in your local area.

It’s a great tool as you can show your opening hours, link to your website, add your contact details, add photos and updates, as well as collecting reviews.

You’ll also want to add search engine optimization keywords and voice search optimization words and phrases too.

For example, if you make and sell candles, you might want to add ‘homemade candles in London (or wherever you live). Or ‘beeswax candles in London’ – you get the idea.

You can also use local slang and dialect for your area. For example, if you sell bread rolls – in your area they might be called cobs, or baps etc.

Give direct answers – don’t beat around the bush!

The bestway to address voice search optimization on your website is to have a frequently asked Questions and Answers section – FAQ.

By ‘answer a question directly’, I mean don’t fluff it out – state facts. For example…

Question could be ‘What do I need to make garlic bread?’

You can answer in two ways – directly and indirectly – look at the two example answers below.

Answer A – To make Garlic bread, you need a baguette, butter and 4 minced garlic cloves. Cut the baguette into slices without slicing all the way through.

Mix the butter and minced garlic together and spread in between the slices.

Wrap the baguette in foil and put in a hot oven for 10 minutes until bread crisp and butter melted.

Answer B – To make Garlic bread, you need just three ingredients. The first ingredient is a baguette or French stick. Then you need butter – you can use salted or unsalted butter, but I prefer salted, and 4 cloves of fresh garlic.

Take a sharp knife and cut the baguette into fairly thick slices, being careful not to slice all the way through the bread. Mince the four garlic cloves and add to the butter. Mash it up until thoroughly mixed.

Then, take the cut bread and carefully spread the garlic butter on both sides of each attached slice. BLAH BLAH BLAH..

Answer A is the way to go – short, concise and to the point. Don’t waffle and use unnecessary steps or phrases.

Use SEO (search engine optimization) best practices too.    

As I said earlier, you need to use both SEO and Voice search optimization for this to work efficiently. You need to have good SEO, so that your website appears near the top of search results – then voice search devices will search those top search results to find the answer to their questions – so you then need voice search optimization.

I’m not going to go into SEO in this article as I’ve covered it in others – see the links below…

You also need to make sure your website is optimized for mobile and tablet devices, as well as desktop or laptop, as people often use voice search on their mobile devices.  

Building your SEO Strategy part 1

Building your SEO Strategy part 2 – content

Conclusion

These are the basics for voice search optimization and I hope that it has helped you to understand what it is, how it is used and how you can ensure that your website is optimized so that you’re ready if anyone asks for something that you create or a service you provide.

If you optimize your website for voice search, then you’ll be on your way to driving more traffic to your website and ultimately driving leads and sales. Good luck!

Common small business marketing problems (and how to fix them).

As we blast into 2025, marketing for small businesses becomes ever more challenging. Marketing constantly evolves and technology, algorithms, as well as consumer behaviour changes every year, which brings their own problems to solve.

So, as a small business it’s sometimes hard to keep on top of everything and anticipate what might be the marketing challenges for this year. Sadly, I’m seeing so many businesses going under – most are due to personal reasons, but I’m sure there are some that just don’t know how to get back out there.

Hopefully, this article will shed some light on some of the problems we small businesses face and give you some guidance on how you can stay ahead of the game and use marketing to keep your business afloat this year.   

No marketing strategy

I’m not saying that you do, but it’s often due to small businesses not having a marketing strategy in place. Many small businesses don’t realise that you need to have long-term plans as well as the shorter more tactical goals and plans.

A marketing strategy covers both by outlining your long-term goals and then HOW you’re going to achieve those goals through marketing efforts in the short term, by defining your target audiences, your messaging, content, channels, and metrics.

The problem – without a specific strategy, it’s difficult to determine which channels are best to reach your target audience – to know who they are and where they hang out. And if you don’t measure the success of the things you do put out, such as on social media, you don’t know if what you’re doing is effective. Also, without clear goals, it’s a challenge to know where your business is and if you’re making any progress.

How to fix it – having a good marketing strategy looks at everything, from identifying your target market and having buyer personas, understanding customers’ pain points and motivations, to finding out what channels you can use to best reach them. Setting achievable goals will help you get to where you want your business to be – then you can work on the tactics you need to implement to achieve those goals.

Creating focused content

I know we say this all the time, but good content is what will get you in front of your target audience and grab their attention. But creating good content needs you to have a really good understanding of your audience and how you can address their needs, wants and pain points to engage them and promote conversions to sales.

The problem – if your content doesn’t speak to your audience, then you’ll have low engagement, which will lead to any marketing efforts failing. If your content doesn’t grab attention, people will scroll on by.

How to fix it – Know your audience – create buyer personas so you understand who and what your content needs to reach and do. Make sure that your content solves problems your audience might have and provide them with solutions or actions that will help them, depending on whether you are product-based or service-based.

Your content needs to be purposeful – moving your potential customers on a journey from finding you, to the consideration stage and then finally to buy. This isn’t a short journey! So, create content that:

  • Educates
  • Entertains
  • Engages
  • Inspires

Include good call to actions and continually be thinking about guiding them to the next step. Ensure your content includes relevant keywords that they’ll understand, good descriptions and give easy to find links to your shop, blog, or website so they can find out more.

Always use a wide range of posts – don’t always just do selling posts.   

Connect with your audience.

Linked to the last point, you need to resonate and connect with your audience. If you don’t, you could lose them.

The problem – If you don’t connect with your audience, your marketing efforts will be in vain. If you don’t put out the right messaging, or give the right impression, your reputation could suffer, and you’ll have reduced brand loyalty.

How to fix it – Ensure that you do thorough marketing research and ask your audience for regular feedback (ask for it), so you can better understand what they want, need or like. This helps you understand how your products or services can solve their problems.

Use storytelling and emotive content that grabs attention and builds that all important trust. Listen to feedback and learn from it – even negative feedback can be turned around.

You can also use email newsletters and blogs to connect with your audience, giving them more in-depth information and content, which helps nurture that all important relationship.

By taking all of this into account, you can build lasting relationships, where you understand your audience and they trust you and become loyal customers.  

Social media

The reason that many social media accounts just don’t work is because of inconsistent posting, lack of engagement and failure to give an audience what they want – and the algorithms don’t always help.  

The problem – You’re not growing on social media, or your growth is very slow. This, in turn, limits who your posts reach, and engagement becomes almost non-existent, so you don’t get those sales. Without these things, you miss out on building a strong community and driving traffic to your website, shop, or blog.

How to fix it – You need to have a good social media strategy, which includes regular posting, interactive content, perhaps collaborations with other businesses or influencers. You need to engage with your followers through comments and messages to build relationships. And you need to use insights or analytics to track how you’re doing and adjust accordingly to ensure you’re on track.

  • Have a content calendar, even if it’s just written on a pad or in a word or excel document. Plan your posts ahead, so you know what you’re doing and when – schedule posts to help remain consistent.
  • Engage with your audience through replying to comments and messages. Try to answer comments with a question where you can encourage a conversation or engagement. This gives you a deeper understanding and connection with your audience.
  • Create visually appealing and valuable content that answers questions for your audience, gives them details of what they want or need, and caters to their interests.
  • Collaborate with other businesses, supporting and sharing each other’s posts. If you can get an influencer on board who aligns with what you do, they’ll help you reach a larger audience.
  • Review your social media insights to understand what works and what doesn’t. And act on it accordingly!

People scroll through social media to be entertained or to find a particular business or product. But mainly it’s scrolling until something catches their eye. By including a mix of posts, incorporating humour, storytelling, tutorials etc. you’ll capture attention.

Algorithms  

GROAN! This is probably THE most challenging thing that small businesses face. The algorithms constantly evolve, which can have a huge impact on your engagement and visibility.

The problem – The constantly changing algorithms can prevent people from seeing your posts, your reach can go up and down, engagement can plumet one minute and suddenly surge another. This can have a detrimental effect on your business and your social media efforts can feel ignored.

How to fix it – Try and stay informed on algorithm changes and adapt where you can. Make it your priority to have high-quality, engaging content that encourages interaction. If necessary, book a coaching session with a social media expert so you are up to speed with best practices.

Understand that algorithms are based on the user experience and relevant content, so creating the right kind of content is vital.

You can’t control the algorithms, but you can control the content you put out to ensure that it is valuable, relevant, and engaging for your particular target audience. If you analyse your insights regularly, create valuable content you know your audience likes, you can adapt to the changes and your social media presence will be better.

You’re losing interest in your marketing.

This happens! You just sometimes feel like you can’t be bothered with it all.

The problem – lack of focus in your marketing efforts can leave to a reduced impact and effectiveness of your content, diluted messages, and chaos. Your engagement will fall, and you’ll get less customers and followers will fall away.

How to fix it – Ensure you have clear business goals and marketing objectives that align and support them.

Regularly review and amend your goals to make them more achievable. If a goal seems too big a mountain to climb, break it down into more manageable chunks.  

A marketing strategy will help you remain focused on what matters to your business and gives you direction as to what you need to do to keep your business at the forefront of your target audience’s minds. It also helps you focus on the channels where your target audience hangs out, so you’re not trying to be on loads of different platforms and spreading yourself too thin.

Standing out in the crowd

2025 is going to see more new businesses and products emerging and standing out in the crowd is a big challenge for small businesses.

Ensure you have a unique brand position (USP) that states clearly what makes your product or service different or better than the rest. How are you different from your competitors?

Make sure that you focus on giving an excellent customer experience at every single touch point that your customers have with your business. From website and social media to blog posts and email or messages, ensure that the service you give is second to none, be transparent and consistent and you’ll find customers will be loyal to you and your brand and will recommend you to their friends and family.

Finally, produce high quality, original, engaging content that perfectly highlights you and your business and your expertise.

Conclusion

I’m sure that there are many more marketing problems out there, and marketing is never an easy ride. 2025 is going to continue to bring challenges to small businesses all over the world, but by being proactive and having a robust strategy, you’ll be able to navigate anything that’s thrown at you.

Marketing isn’t just about short-term gains, it’s the marathon, building long-term relationships with customers and having a sustainable plan for your business’s success. Having a strategy in place and with your dedication to your business and creativity when it comes to your content, you can achieve your goals, and your business will be a success. If you’d like help with any of the things I’ve mentioned in this article, feel free to get in touch. I offer a free 30-minute consultation.

Driving traffic to your website

You’ve worked hard to get your website up and running and have done everything you can to make sure it includes keywords; the right SEO and you launch – then hear crickets! There is nothing more frustrating, but just like you have to drive traffic to your online shop with a provider, or to your blog, you also must drive traffic to your website. A website, especially a new one, won’t just magically appear on the first page of a google search.

Driving traffic to your website with content

I know that this is probably startlingly obvious, but you can’t get website traffic without content. It is the absolute cornerstone of every other strategy to drive traffic. So, how do you do this?

Have a blog.

I know that this seems like a bit of a pain in the wotsit, but it really does help get people to your website. A blog is where you regularly publish useful content for your audience. No matter what business you are, a blog is a useful tool and there is always something to write about.

It’s been found that businesses that use a blog get on average 55% more website visitors than those that don’t.

Blog ideas could be:

  • A tutorial on how to do something
  • Talk about a particular product or service you offer with details of the benefits to your audience
  • You could use it to tell your story or let your audience know more about you and your business
  • Behind the scenes
  • FAQs
  • How customers use your products or service with testimonials to prove a point
  • Interview someone – maybe a customer about why they love your products or services
  • Educate your audience on what you do or an aspect of what you do
  • Publish a gift guide on your blog highlighting your products – if you offer gift wrapping, talk about this, and give lots of examples and photos

These are just a few ideas but shows that there are lots of different ways to blog.

Have a good ‘hook’ – headline to draw your audience in – A headline that pulls your audience in is an important part of your content.

Invite someone else to write a guest blog on your site – this can work well with someone who does something similar to you, but in a different way. They will then share their guest blog, which could bring new readers to yours and to your website.

Just ensure that you give them guidelines as you don’t want a blog post that is unethical, gives too many spammy links (which could damage your brand) and make sure that the information they give is high quality and original.

A picture tells a thousand words!  

I’ve written a whole blog post on this subject, but good visuals are a must to create charts, graphs, lovely images etc. And don’t forget to put text behind or under the photo to describe it. That helps your SEO.

In much the same say as images, video can really attract visitors to your website and keep them engaged.

If you use YouTube, you can put the link to your website from your YouTube videos in the video description. And in your video, use a call to action in your narrative to point your audience to your website.

Give your readers useful resources.

This won’t necessarily be relevant to all businesses, but it’s useful to have a resource centre on your website. I have a ‘free resources’ tab on my website and have a load of free downloads to help small businesses. All I ask in return, is that you sign up to my newsletter, then you get a password to get access to the resources.

Resources can be checklists, downloadable guides, how to tutorials, videos, templates, webinars – there are loads of things you can put to help people. What you use for your resources will depend on what you do. A resource centre will encourage people to return to your website over and over again.

Increase traffic with SEO.

Again, I have written several blog posts to help with SEO, but SEO is what helps people find your site in the first place. Here are just some of the basics…

  • Keywords – words and/or phrases that people will type into a search engine. If your website includes the search words people use, it is more likely you will be found. Be aware though, this does take time if your website is new. You can use keyword research tools to help you with this. The Google Keyword planner is a great help for this. You’ll find that there are keywords that have a higher search volume which can make your website harder to rank for, so it’s about striking a happy balance.
  • Long-tail keywords tend to be easier to rank for – as the name suggests, this is more of a phrase rather than just one word. For example, I will tag this blog post with the long-tail keyword ‘Drive traffic to your website’ and ‘How to drive traffic to your website.’
  • Strategic keywords – The next thing to think about is WHERE to put your keywords. Ensure your target keyword is in your title tag, headings, naturally in the body of your article and always within the first 100 words of the text. And don’t forget image keywords in alt text. And if you can, also put it in the meta description (the short description that Google shows along with your title when your article comes up in a search).

Internal links

This is something that is easy to forget when you’re on a roll with writing but try and add at least 1-3 links to other pages on your website, so you keep your readers on your website for longer, which will help with your ranking.

Page speed

This is important as when someone lands on your website, they don’t want to wait for everything to load in order to see your content. I know that I won’t wait for long if a website is slow. 

Make sure that your image sizes are not huge as this slows everything up and ensure that all your plug-ins are working properly.

There is a Google Page Speed Insights tool which can give you a score on your site’s performance and provide suggestions. 

Mobile-friendly

Most visitors to your website will view your site on a mobile phone, so make sure that your website/blog posts are optimised for mobile use. There’s usually a little button when you go into your website’s dashboard so you can check this.

Refresh your content regularly.

Keep your content fresh by updating it regularly. This might be updating your shop contents or changing some of the wording on your homepage or about page. If you do publish blogs, publish them regularly and consistently – and if your blog post is old, ensure that you update it with relevant facts, figures, and dates! 

No matter whether your website ranks on the first page of Google or not, a refresh of content can make all the difference to traffic. You can do this by updating images, ensuring that links are working, adding new keywords, and tweaking words in your meta description every now and again, or updating your product descriptions.

Have a Google Business Profile

A Google Business Profile will really help you get local traffic to your website, so this is a no-brainer. Just like a social media site, although easier, you can add new photos and publish a blog post or update with a photo and text to keep it up to date. Feel free to message me about this if you need more help.

Increasing website traffic using social media

Now you’ve dealt with your website and getting that all up to date and sorted for being found, now it’s time to look at how you can increase your traffic using social media.

Promote your content in social media posts.

As I’ve already said, you can’t just publish something and hope that it’s found. You need to tell people it’s there. Whether you use Facebook, Instagram, X, Pinterest etc, when you publish content, give the link to your website. People who come from another source, other you’re your website are called ‘backlinks,’ and this is a great way for search engines to recognise that your content is valued and being looked for.

For example, you’re launching a new product – give the link to your new product in your shop, so your audience knows where they can buy it. Add your website to your bio so it’s obvious you have one!

If you have a blog or a newsletter, publicise this on your social media sites – people won’t know you have either if you don’t tell them, but don’t overdo this – as with everything, in moderation. I publish a blog post every week and use social media to tell people about it. I also have a newsletter which I publicise every month, either in stories or a post.

Add hashtags – If the social media site you use is hashtag-friendly, such as Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, include relevant hashtags to help the reach of your posts. Make sure the hashtags you use aren’t always the same – they need to relevant to the subject your post talks about.   

Ensure that your website has your social media share buttons, so visitors know you are on social media and which social media sites you are on.

Post at the right time – your insights can help you find out the times of the day and week that you are likely to get most engagement from your social media posts. I’ve tried all sorts of times and find the best for me is very early in the morning as the majority of my target audience tend to be online first thing. I also network first thing – and again for an hour at lunchtime (which other businesses see and sometimes will return the favour and look at my post) – and I do it again in the evening, which is where I sometimes end up having conversations. You have to work out what works best for you and your business. 

Facebook groups – if you belong to any Facebook groups, this is also a good way to get yourself known and there will be opportunities to talk about what you do and publish your website URL. Some groups have specific days of the week when you can do this – just be aware of the groups’ rules and regulations to ensure you don’t get banned from a group by violating their rules.

You can also start your own Facebook group and build your own community.

Business directories

There are usually free business directories in your area where you can add a short description of your business and give your website address. Some let you add photos and a bigger description. It’s definitely worth researching these to find what is available locally to you.

Set up an email newsletter.

I have other blog posts in more detail about this, but an email newsletter is invaluable to your business. People sign up to your email because they want to, so you have a captive audience. You can use your newsletter to promote your website, your products, or services, give news to your subscribers, talk about any events you’ll be attending, give news about any webinars you’re hosting, or point them to your social media sites. Love your subscribers and give them value and they will want to keep coming back for more. You can read more about newsletters here.

Other ways to increase your website traffic.

There are other ways to increase your website traffic, which includes:

  • Host an online webinar – people love to learn, and webinars are a great way to reach your target audience and give them free information. You can also upgrade to do paid online webinars once you are getting known.
  • Participate in forums – answer questions and share your knowledge.
  • Attend a conference or convention – there is usually a cost involved in this, but they can be very worthwhile – and you will engage with other like-minded people.
  • Join a networking group or event – these are still out there as a face-to-face event – this can help you get your business name out there and to meet other businesses.
  • Have a stall at a market or event – if you are product-based, this is a great place to give people details of your website. You’re missing a trick if you don’t add a business card with your website details with everything you sell. And have a stock of your cards on display, so people who don’t buy can take one – they may contact you later.  
  • Use paid advertising to promote your business, or if you are promoting a specific event, such as a webinar you’re hosting.

I appreciate that this has been a long blog post, but I hope that it helps you find out a bit more about driving traffic to your website in a variety of ways. As always, feel free to contact me if you have any questions. And check out my website for more details about the services I offer! 

Why a website is important for small businesses!

Why do I need a website?

Ever since lockdown, people are being pushed to shop local and support small businesses – and quite right too! This is possible because of the internet. Small businesses are increasingly on social media, or have online shops, but the problem is that, as a small business, you don’t own those online sites, so if for any reason your business was banned and your social media site taken down – or if an online shop site had a problem with their servers, you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. But if you have your own website, you own it and you run it how you like.

A website:

  • gives you the opportunity to have an online shopfront and reach customers outside of your local area and it’s a great way to grow your business.
  • Could be the first impression potential customers get about your business and all you do or sell.
  • Can be found on google and other search engines, so having your own website makes you easier to find.
  • Gives your business credibility and gives you an edge over similar businesses that don’t have a website. It also helps you compete against other businesses in your niche.
  • Means you have your own domain name so you can be more easily found online.
  • Is your online catalogue or brochure, telling the world all about you and what you have to offer.     

If I want to find out how to do something or where to buy something, the first thing I do is look online. Most transactions these days take place online and therefore some of the traditional marketing techniques have been replaced with online strategies. However, a surprising number of small businesses do not have a website.

Mind boggling stats!

According to Statista, out of the nearly 8 billion people in the world, 5.35 billion of them, (around 66%) have access to the internet.

And, on average, internet users spend six and a half hours online every day.

Every second, more than 20 million people are looking on the internet, on their mobile devices or PCs, buying everything you can think of….from books to houses, from kitchen gadgets to garden tools. If you, as a business owner don’t have a website, you are missing a trick as your business won’t be found, so you are missing out on potential sales.

There is a cost involved, but it can be cheaper if you do it yourself – there are so many easy-to-follow website hosting companies that are fairly easy to set up. I paid a web designer to do mine as I didn’t have time and prefer to have someone keeping any eye on it, as well as having someone who knows what they’re doing when there’s a problem, or I want some quick updates done. I just find it gives me peace of mind!   

I know that many small crafting businesses use online shops to promote their business, and it works very well for them. Again, there are costs for this service, and at the end of the day, you don’t own your shop, so don’t have any control over it, but I understand why some find this a better option. Your online shop is still open for business 24/7, unless they have any glitches.

Promote your business 24/7!

As the title suggests, having an online presence means that your business is ‘open’ 24 hours a day, 7 days a week….even when you are asleep. Information about your business, your services, what you sell, are there at your customers’ and potential customers’ fingertips. People are always looking online – they research products before they buy and if you have an online presence, and you happen to sell what they want, you could make a sale. If you don’t have a website, you can be almost invisible in searches on search engines…and in this day and age, you can’t afford to be.

Building reputation and credibility

A website gives you the chance to highlight your abilities, your products, and services for the world to see – they can see the quality and price, and if you have an online shop, they can buy directly from you. If you don’t have a website, your potential customers will go to a competitor.

Through your website, you can be seen as an expert in your field, and through the recommendations and comments from satisfied customers, you can be seen to be reliable, trustworthy and that your products are top notch.

When you give out your business card, it will tell potential customers a little about your business. If you’ve given them your card because they’ve seen your stall at a local market, they will assume that they can log onto your website when they get home and see more of your products. Imagine their disappointment if they get home to find no website details…and of course, this will lose potential sales.

Again, you may give a link to your online shop, but it doesn’t give as much information as a website can – and you can’t have a linked email sign up, which helps you promote your products and services even more.

First impression

Not only does having a website make you more credible, but it also shows that your business is established and that you are experienced at what you do. Even if your competitors are stronger than you, a well-built, mobile friendly website can entice customers to choose you instead. You might operate your business from the tiniest desk space in the corner of your dining room, or make your products in your tiny spare bedroom, but when you have a website, your customers don’t see this. All they see is the power of your brand – size doesn’t matter!

Advertise your business

Your website is your ultimate advertising tool. For a relatively small investment in the cost of setting up your website, you can reach millions of people. It is that one brochure that the whole world has access to – no printing and re-printing when you have new products – you just add them online at the click of a button. You can include tons more information and images than you could afford to put into a brochure.

Of course, there is a place in business for brochures and flyers and advertising in local magazines or newspapers, but your online presence is always available, not just for the limited time that you can afford, or until your product set changes. It’s a fantastic marketing tool that is constantly relevant and up to date.

Save you time

Your website can tell people who you are, where you are and what you do. Without a website, you may spend endless wasted time on the telephone or email giving people directions to where you are, giving details of the products you sell or the services you offer. Your website gives all these details in one, easy to access space, available 24/7. Not only does it give these basic details, but it also gives more detailed information about your products. Then, when people do contact you, it’s generally about something more specific or to buy from you or use your services.

Reach a wider audience

Advertising in your local paper, putting out your business cards and attending markets, conventions, and networking events, are all brilliant ways of getting your products and brand out to a wider audience. However, with a website you literally have a worldwide audience. Business often comes from word of mouth, and this is a great way to get local business, but in order to expand and reach customers that don’t know you, the internet is the way forward.

Beat your competition

If you have a business, you only have to look on Facebook or on the internet to know that you have hundreds of competitors who do the same as you. If your competitors have a website, then why shouldn’t you have one? The joy of having a website is that it doesn’t matter how big or how small your business is, it will help you reach more people and increase your sales. Through your website, you can gather information about your customers. You can use your website to host an online survey to find out what your customers want, and online forms can be used to easily contact you to request a quote or ask for further information. When you know what your customers want, you can develop products or services to solve their problems or meet their needs.

Customer Service

Your customers are the most important part of your business. You can improve the service you give them by including FAQs and a Contact Us page. Customers can not only leave comments and recommendations, but they can also ask questions. You can collect your customers email addresses, and with their permission, can send them regular updates about new products. This makes them feel valued and valued customers will come back to you time after time.

I hope that I have helped you to see the benefits of having a website. You may have thought that a website is a waste of money, but it is the exact opposite. You may have to invest a little to get your website written and built professionally, but you will soon get your investment back when new customers find you and start buying from you.

If you’d like to have a look at my website, click on the link below, and as always if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Check out my website

Reasons why content marketing is crucial for small businesses

Content marketing and its value really can’t be stressed enough – especially in this digital age where, according to zippia.com, 62%, (that’s 4.9 billion) of the global population use the internet. It is an immensely powerful marketing strategy that can help your small business become highly visible to your target audience.

By producing quality content regularly, you build trust, authority, and credibility with your audience, which helps you stand out from your competition.

The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as…

“…a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

One of the key words here is ‘valuable’ – content that will speak to your potential customers, information that they want and need; information that solves a problem or pain point.

Ways content marketing can help  

Content writing is more than just publishing posts on social media. There are many different types of content marketing and these include:

  • Blogs
  • Video
  • Social Media content
  • Email newsletters
  • Infographics
  • Case Studies
  • Checklists
  • E-books
  • Memes
  • User-generated content
  • Podcasts
  • Customer testimonials
  • Webinars
  • Success stories
  • Interactive content

What does all this content do for your business?

With 62% of the global population using the internet, you have a huge market for your products or services, especially if you trade worldwide. So, let’s look at some reasons for taking time to create all this content.

Get your business found on search engines

With all those people online, there will be potential customers out there looking for exactly what you have to offer. If you are not online, you won’t be found. You can put your business online in many ways. You can set up an online shop, through Etsy or Shopify, or one of the other online shopping host channels, but these can be expensive, especially with the fee increases we’ve seen recently.

Having your own website is a great step to take, as it is yours. You do have to pay an annual fee, but this can be done fairly cheaply, and worth it as your website can not only host your shop, but it can also tell your audience a bit about you, and you can add a blog and advertise your email newsletter all in one place.

The other thing I would definitely advocate is setting up a Google Business Profile, (which used to be called Google my business), which is fabulous for being found locally. Again, this includes a profile, you can post and share blog posts, as well as adding photos and videos.

More traffic to your website

Linking in with being found on search engines is that content marketing helps push more traffic to your website. If you blog about a problem that you solve or write an article on your website about what your business can do for your customers, when they do a search online, your article or website will appear. Once they’re on your website, it is likely they will have a look around, visit your shop and look at your details…and if they like what they see, they are likely to return in the future.

It’s important to have a CTA (call to action) on every page of your website, which tells your visitors what to do next. You can use these buttons to tell your audience to ‘buy now,’ or ‘sign up for my email newsletter,’ or point them to your courses, training or coaching and to your customer testimonials – in fact, anything that keeps them on your site.

More sales

When a potential customer finds a site they like, or feel that a site speaks to them personally, they will return again and again. And if they are returning, they are more likely to convert to customers.

Make sure that your website includes customer testimonials about the benefits that your products or services give. I always like to read about a product before I buy it, and if there are great testimonials, which show me how a product will benefit me, I’m more likely to press that ‘buy now’ button.

Testimonials are also proof, not just that you have good products, but also you have impeccable customer service, which goes a long way to getting that button pressed too.

Establishes you as an expert

Writing valuable content that speaks to your audience, also has the added bonus of setting you up as an expert in your field. If you’re sharing content that serves your customers and gives them valuable tips or information, they’ll want to know more. Setting yourself up as an expert promotes trust with your audience and engages them to want to know more about you and your products or services…and what’s in it for them!

Enhances your brand   

This might sound a bit harsh, but generally people are not really interested in your brand or in you, they are more interested in themselves – in their wants and needs. It’s not about being selfish, it’s human nature. When someone first looks at your website, shop, social media business page, they are not interested in your brand, no matter how hard you’ve worked on it. They are interested in what you can do for them, what you have that they might like, or something that makes their life easier. This is hard to hear, but it has an upside.

If you are providing something they’re interested in for whatever reason, or if your social media pages entertain or educate them, they will then become interested in your brand, as they will see it, and therefore you, as something they can relate to.

If you are consistently publishing new, unique content on your blog or website and promoting it to your social media pages – or if you are publishing new, unique content to your social media pages, consistently, more people will get to see your name or business name and will start to relate. If they like what they see, they’re more likely to share your posts, or tell their friends and family about your wonderful products or fabulous services, so your audience will start to grow, which is when your brand really shines through. This all takes time and is not something you can achieve overnight.

Helps you compete with your competitors

I’m not talking about copying or doing the same as your competitors, but there is something to be said to ensuring that you’re using the same (and more) marketing channels as your competitors. When your business and brand is not in a place where your competitor is, you’re potentially losing out on business.

It’s worth doing research on your competitors and finding out more about them, so that your business is in the right places to compete.

Improve customer relationships

Having good relationships with your customers goes without saying, we all know that. But it’s even more important in this digital age, as customers have so much choice when it comes to who they want to do business with. And it’s important to remember that customers are willing to pay more for a better experience.

Content marketing is the best way to show your customers and potential customers that you understand their problems or pain points…and that your products or services solve those problems. If you have a website, you could add a list of FAQs to help explain how your products or services solve those problems, or you can write about it in your blog or email newsletter.

This really helps improve those customer relationships, instill trust, and encourages them to spread the word about your business.

Helps your overall marketing strategy

Content marketing is just one aspect of your marketing strategy, but it is the glue that holds each activity together to help you grow your business. If you can align all your marketing activities with your content, it will help you achieve your goals and keep them coordinated with everything else you do.

For example, you decide to create an e-book alongside a downloadable checklist. You can promote this on social media, or in Facebook ads. You can also send it to your customers in your email newsletter, and you can promote it on your website. You could even write a blog post about it and how it solves a particular problem. So, just this one piece of content will help support your multi-channel marketing strategy.

Content marketing is good value for your business

Finally, if you research and write your content yourself, it is an economical option and costs you nothing but your time. You’ll learn a lot from the research you do, and you’ll find more content you can use as you go.

Not everyone wants to write their own content, and if your business is very busy, it may be worth you outsourcing some of the copywriting work. This is still excellent value for money, as you’ll be asking for expert help from someone who already knows how everything works and will know about your kind of business.

Conclusion

Content marketing is crucial for small businesses. One of the biggest challenges that you face as a small business is reaching your potential customers. To create brand awareness without access to a huge budget for marketing campaigns, content marketing is your answer. Having the right kind of content marketing strategy in place to ensure that you reach your target audience, will help your business stand out from your competitors and build trust, authority, and credibility with your customers.

If you struggle to get to grips with your content marketing strategy, or need help to write your content, contact me for a free 30-minute chat to see how I can help. Have a good week!

Planning your first simple sales funnel

A sales funnel is the journey you take your customer on to lead them from follower who may or may not be interested in what you do, to getting a sale or a sign up to one of your services.

My last blog looked at how to create a sales funnel, which gave information about all the various steps of a sales funnel. This blog post breaks things down even more and gives you an example of a very simple first sales funnel.

Step 1 – free content

The awareness stage focuses on attracting potential customers. This typically starts online with social media posts and/or blog posts or maybe YouTube videos – FREE information that you give out. This is where your potential customers enter your funnel –the awareness stage.  

Potential customers could stay at this stage for a long time – they love your content and enjoy learning the things you teach them or show them. So free content moves them into the education stage.

Step 2 – you introduce your low-cost offer.

I’m going to cover two ways to introduce a low-cost offer to entice potential customer to buy.

Social media offer

With social media, you can offer a substantial discount to get a customer through that first hurdle of buying from you. I often see ‘Tenner Tuesday’ or ‘Fiver Friday’ on Facebook. This is a risk-free and low-cost way for a potential customer to try out your products or services.

This is a good way to get that first customer, but there are no guarantees that they’ll buy again from you, because other than seeing your business and your products on social media, they may not look for you again. If you have a website or online shop, it’s important to give them details of this so that they have a further opportunity to look at your products/services.  

Opt-in offer.

If you have a website, then you can set up an opt-in offer that encourages your potential customers to subscribe to your email newsletter.

Opt-in content is still available to your potential customers free of charge, but this is where you get an email address in exchange for the content. Subscribing to your email newsletter can be the first step towards the decision stage, where they say ‘yes’ to something.    

So, your opt-in offer is something you give away for free to get someone to subscribe to your newsletter. What you offer will depend on the type of business you run. It could be:

  • An e-Book or PDF
  • A checklist
  • A free small product (although I wouldn’t advise this as it will cost you money for postage)
  • A small discount
  • A tutorial on ‘how to’ do something
  • A webinar or video series

This is called a lead magnet, because it attracts a potential customer with the free content, (like a magnet), which entices someone to give their email address (lead).  

So, they sign up via your website or link you’ve put on social media, and they receive their free content, in exchange for their email address. You now have them signed up to your newsletter – and they have said that first ‘yes.’

Step 3 – have a further offer within your newsletter.  

When someone signs up to your newsletter, they will usually get a thank you email, with their free offer attached or a link to download it or go to it (if it’s a video or tutorial).

Then you have a small email sequence that begins to nurture that relationship, and you can suggest a further offer, which is a low-cost offer. This low-cost offer is very low risk to the potential customer, and low risk to you as it doesn’t cost you much, if anything, depending on what it is. It means that your potential customers can try out your paid offer without spending a lot.

What you offer, again will depend on what kind of business you are. For example, you could offer a low-cost webinar or tutorial, that you send them online, or that is on your website in a hidden page. It could be you offer an incentive to buy something with a discount (like your Tenner Tuesday or Fiver Friday) if you’re a product-based business.  

If they take you up on the low-cost offer, they have taken the first step to being a customer and your funnel is working! And so long as your low-cost offer gives them great value and they love it, they are more likely to buy from you again – and pay a little more for your higher cost products or services.

It takes time.

It takes time for potential customers to decide to take you up on one of your more expensive products or services, but by nurturing that relationship through your email newsletter, where they learn more about you and your business, and get to know you more, there is a chance they will convert to a regular customer. You can also continue to nurture this relationship on social media.

The decision stage and action stage can take a while for your follower on social media, or subscriber to your newsletter to trust you enough to buy from you, but it will happen. By creating the odd offer or discount every now and again, it will further encourage that undecided someone to convert to a buyer or client.   

Once you’ve mastered that all important simple funnel, you can move on to something more complicated, such as upsells and downsells, or even move them to a more profitable funnel, which if you have email marketing, you can do through segmenting your market – which is another blog post in future!

If you find this all a bit too complicated, you can book a free call with me to discuss how I can help you move forward and create your own sales funnel.  

Contact me for a free consultation

 

Building your SEO strategy – Part 1

Preparing for your SEO strategy  

Whether you have a small business or are part of a bigger corporate, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a must for your website to help you rank higher on Google and other search engines.

Building your SEO strategy sounds complicated and may make you want to immediately zone out and not read more – but trust me, I’m going to try and keep it simple! It’s really just a plan!

Your SEO strategy is simply the process of organising your website’s content to improve your chances of appearing in search results – a way of maximising your opportunities to get organic traffic from search engine results pages, (SERPs).

Having a strategy or plan, helps you keep on track when you create your content. It helps you see that you need to create content that people are looking for and searching for, rather than creating content you think they’re looking for, or posting what you want to post.

When you just react and post without a plan, your content will appear unorganised and scattered – this is when search engine bots have a problem indexing your site, understanding exactly what you do and therefore, have a problem ranking your pages.

BUT WE CAN FIX THIS! However, as it’s such a big subject, I’m going to do this over a few blog posts, so you don’t feel too overwhelmed!

Steps to helping create an SEO strategy.

Here are few simple steps to follow:

Make a list of keywords.

This is always the first step to take. Use Google search to help you with this. OK, let’s go with an example…

You make candles – you sell them at markets and on your website – and you also use social media. You make all sorts of candles for all sorts of occasions, some standard that people can buy and some bespoke.

Your keyword search starts with Google – type in candles or put the word twice (as I did – candles candles).

Google will then suggest loads of options, such as:

  • Beeswax candles.
  • Votive candles
  • Scented candles
  • Four candles (!!! This made me smile – if you know the Two Ronnies sketch)
  • Birthday candles
  • Cake candles
  • Soy candles
  • Specialist candles
  • Candles near me

You’ll know that these are good keywords to use for SEO as they come straight from Google and so you know this is what people are already searching for.

You will find that short-tail keywords (search words using just one word – such as ‘candle’) are more popular as most people will start with just one word when looking for something specific.

Long-tail keywords (such as ‘candles for special occasions), won’t be as popular in the volume of people looking for them, but they tend to be generally easier to rank for and obviously attract people who are searching for something more specific. 

I’d say type in several different words and short phrases into Google and see what comes up – try and have a list of at least 10 keywords.

You can then check them in a keyword checker (there are some free sites out there, such as  https://www.wordstream.com/keywords or Ubersuggest) which will give you the number of people searching that keyword and whether they’re low, medium or high volume.  

Look at Google’s first page.

Once you’ve got your list of keywords, type them one at a time into Google search and look at the first 10 entries that come up.  This shows you the businesses that currently rank for that keyword, and the kind of thing (maybe a list or a business itself) that people are looking for when using that keyword. Make a note of what comes up in the search and what kind of things, such as lists or blog posts that come up.

Analyse your competitors. 

Most of us will know who our main competitors are, but to find out who Google thinks your competitors are, you can use a free tool, such as Semrush, to help you. You simply type the URL of your website into their search, then click on ‘Domain overview’ and scroll down where you’ll find a further search called ‘Main organic competitors.’ If you click on this and then click on ‘view all,’ you will get loads of information about keywords. It will show a list of all your competitors, plus the most common keywords that you share, as well as telling you how much traffic those keywords pull in.

Where you see a lot of common keywords, you’ll have your list of at least 4-5 competitors.

Keyword gap

You can now use the Semrush ‘Keyword Gap Tool.’

The ‘gap’ refers to the keywords that your competitors are ranking for, but that you’re NOT ranking for.

This tool will help you identify those gaps, so you can then use them on your website or blog, therefore optimising your existing content with those keywords – or creating new pages to use them.

To use this tool, you simply put the URL of your website and then the URLs of four of your competitors and press ‘compare’ and scroll down to ‘all keywords details for…’ and click on the ‘missing’ tab. You’ll get a huge list and then it’s up to you to sort through which of those missing keywords would be relevant to your business and to your website. 

There are lots of other uses that Semrush can help you with in analysing your competitors and your website, so it’s worth going on and having a play – and it’s really interesting!

These are the first few steps for SEO and will help get you prepared to look at your SEO strategy. Next time we’ll look at how to use this new-found knowledge to help you rank on Google.

If this all feels a bit too overwhelming, I can help you with your SEO strategy through 1:1 coaching. Just contact me to find out more.