If you’ve been keeping up with the business news recently, it’s all looking a bit depressing for the British high street. Woolworths are long gone, Poundworld are in receivership and sales are dropping almost everywhere. You may wonder what this has to do with trending topics. Well, whilst economic factors will always play a big part in people’s shopping habits, so do trends.
It could be easy to feel gloomy when you’re a small business watching giants struggle. The good news is that you have an advantage. You can spot what’s trending in your industry and set to work. You might invest a bit of time in a failed experiment but at least you can try and test it quickly and at relatively low cost. In the current climate the companies that are most likely to survive are the ones that innovate.
It’s a common complaint. In fact, it’s one I’ve made myself. You create all this fabulous content and it feels as if no-one’s listening. No-one comments on your blog, your Facebook reach is rubbish and you feel like throwing a party if you get a couple of likes on a post! You feel invisible. How can you get your customers listening to you when it feels as if they don’t?
There’s a lot to think about when you start a business. However you decide to organise things there’s one thing you can’t escape. You won’t make money if you don’t find your customers. There’s a never ending stream of advice on ways to market your business and you can try as much or as little as you want. However, the simple fact is that you need to tell people you exist or they won’t know.
There’s so much marketing content out there it could make your head spin. You could spend your entire life reading blogs from one expert or another, or signing up for endless courses that promise to tell you the secret of a successful business.
Sometimes it can feel as if marketing is one big front. You set out your stall to persuade people to do business with you. The idea of showing them behind the scenes seems completely counterintuitive. There’s no way you could show people the cogs working, is there?
If you’ve been reading about marketing for any length of time you’ve probably come across the concept of know like and trust. If you haven’t, here’s your introduction.
When you have an online business, you can (in theory) work with anyone, anywhere in the world. But what if you only serve one local area? Sometimes, where you’re based is key to your marketing. I know that there are people who travel between London, Paris and New York to find the right hairdresser, but what if you’re in Wigan?
It might be a cliché, but it’s true: people buy from people. Even when you shop with a big brand, your decisions end up being based on the service you receive. A helpful member of staff could convince you to buy something and have you recommending them to your friends.
You might be looking at that title and wondering what on earth an email nurture campaign is. Even if you haven’t heard the term before you’ve probably seen one. A nurture series is one of those email sequences that you sometimes get when you first sign up to a new mailing list. You might get an email every day.