Are you struggling to establish market presence for your business?
Whether you’ve been going for a while, or you just started your business a few months ago and are still finding your way, it can be tough trying to establish yourself in the marketplace. Trust me; as a digital marketer, I’m approaching by businesses experiencing this issue ALL THE TIME.
But what can you do about it? I could list strategies all day, but I know you’re busy.
That’s why I’m going to give you some tips to help you establish market presence for YOUR business, below.
The best way to establish market presence
In my opinion, it’s always best to go to the pros – that is, an experienced digital marketing agency. They should be able to talk to you about your business, and the buyer’s journey your customers tend to go through. They’ll also be able to devise a strategy for you based on the goals you want to achieve for your business.
But let’s go back to the buyer’s journey for a second. The first thing most agencies will say to a business looking to establish presence, is to go backwards. After all, it’s great to be able to engage with customers who are ready to buy right there and then, but unfortunately, most of the time it doesn’t work that way.
Instead, an agency will help you consider how people initially find out about you online – what do they do first? They take their search to Google, of course!
Now, I’m sure I don’t just speak for myself when I say that all I want is for everybody who may want to use my services to know about me. However, achieving that is often easier said than done – and getting people to know you exist is only half the battle.
TIP: Here’s an exercise for you. Try typing in your products or services into Google and see if you show up. Can you see any results for your business? If not, it’s not exactly great, but it’s not the end of the end of the world, either – that’s because I’m going to give you some tips on how to fix it, below.
Look deeper into the buyer’s journey
Your customers go through a journey when they discover they need your product or service. They’re looking for a solution to a problem, and trying to find help. Any agency will tell you that’s when you want to put yourself in front of them; when they’re about to need/buy what you’re offering. This is also known as the bottom of the sales funnel.
Think about it; when you increase your presence by selling a product, you’re increasing that presence for just one person. Even if the person didn’t necessarily buy your product, they might tell someone else. You might stick in their mind because you helped them out, and answered their biggest questions.
A reputable digital marketing agency will help you get to your customers at every stage of the buyer’s journey; not just when they’re ready to buy. They’ll do this by creating quality content that answers their questions about your product or service, from the moment they know they have a problem, right up to deciding which solution is best for them, and making a decision.
And the best place to publish this content? A blog, of course! An agency will help you match the language and phrases your customers use when they first contact you (a bit of SEO comes in handy, too!).
And remember, not everyone will be ready to buy, but the leads who are only just beginning their research are arguably just as important as the ones at the bottom of the funnel.
Nurture your leads with clever emails
With the right digital marketing approach, an agency will even be able to help you grab the attention of a lead who is only just beginning their buyer’s journey, and isn’t even aware you can help them yet. You can then help nurture these leads into becoming customers with clever email marketing – something that your agency will be able to set up for you.
So, when your customers are ready to buy, who will they go to? Probably the person that helped them by giving them lots of helpful information!
In other words, they’ll go to you.
At this point, I cannot stress the importance of your email database. For instance, did you know that email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter? And 72% of people prefer to receive promotional content through email, compared to 17% who prefer social media.
Any good agency will be able to help you keep your email database up-to-date, fresh and segmented as much as possible. They’ll also ensure your customers opt-in to your emails; that way, you know you’re sending them to people who actually want to hear from you.
TIP: Here are some great email automation tools I can highly recommend to get started with nurturing those all-important leads, but your chosen agency might use something very similar.
How this strategy works in real life
I’ve used the exact same logic to help one of our most successful customers; Superwarm. They initially started with only 1,000 visits to their website every month. And now? They’re getting 137,000! That’s 1,644,000 visits per year – and the leads and sales just keep on coming.
Because Superwarm got in there relatively early and started publishing helpful content that their customers would be searching for, no-one can catch up to them – they’ve essentially left their competition in the dust. A lot of people in Edinburgh have now heard of their brand, despite not all of them necessarily buying boilers.
Think of it this way; a homeowner reads just one blog about how to fix their faulty boiler, and it helped them. They didn’t buy a boiler, but they kept the name of the company in mind, so that later down the line, when they do need a replacement, Superwarm is the one they’ll go to. They’ll also recommend them to friends!
Next steps
By now, you should have a much better understanding of how to establish market presence for your business. A digital marketing agency is your best friend, and above I’ve highlighted some of the key aspects they’ll be able to help you with.
The most important takeaway here is this: In order to get in front of the people who need your services, you have to be generating traffic from Google – and a digital marketing agency will help you with that.
The alternative is spending a fortune on ads when you don’t know are working.
So, what comes next? Well, here’s a suggestion.
I challenge you to start thinking about the different stages of the buying cycle your customers go through. Make a list of some of the questions they ask at each stage, and think about how you can answer those questions. And for the best results, contact a digital marketing agency to discuss your options, and how they might be able to help you.
Do you have any specific questions about establishing market presence that I haven’t answered above? Please let me know in the comments’ section – I promise to reply!