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21 Ways to Promote Your Business

Business success is not simply predicated on the quality of your product or service. It is also important to know how to promote your business effectively. There are many ways you market your business to the right audience. While some of them are easy and don’t require a lot of expertise, other techniques require constant work and analysis.

In this article, we’re going to cover all the proven tips and strategies you can use to promote your business effectively.

In this blog

  1. Build digital assets for your business
  2. Create business listings that bring value
  3. Offer a free trial of your service
  4. Drive and optimize online reviews
  5. Use SEO to enhance search visibility
  6. Leverage email marketing outreach
  7. Advertise via paid search ads
  8. Run social media ads
  9. Move your core business online
  10. Publish press releases
  11. Create and publish new content
  12. Audit your digital assets
  13. Work with popular influencers
  14. Do guest post outreach
  15. Partner with businesses that complement your products
  16. Offer robust customer support
  17. Build your own online community
  18. Take inspiration from your competitors
  19. Set up regular sale campaigns
  20. Incentivize customer loyalty with rewards
  21. Create an affiliate network
  22. Frequently Asked Questions

#1: Build digital assets for your business

The first step to promoting your business is to create digital assets for it. Typically, this means creating a website or any other viable asset.

While a website is not the only digital asset you can create (some businesses prefer to start with social media pages, apps, YouTube channels, etc), it’s a good starting point. You can build out your entire online presence with a website.

Statistics show that 71% of small businesses have a website, which underlines its importance.

If you already have a restaurant website and want to build another digital asset to earn more impressions, developing a restaurant mobile app is a viable option. With a no-code mobile app maker like AppMySite, you can easily develop apps in minutes.  

Other digital assets you can build include social media pages. If you have the resources to create premium content, starting a podcast or a YouTube channel is also a great way to grow your online presence.

#2: Create business listings that bring value

No matter which type of business you have, there are a number of listing platforms you can feature your website on.

Software platforms for example generally create business listings on G2. It’s ideal for SaaS companies to get reviews on dedicated software listing platforms. Most software buyers refer to these platforms for reviews and feedback before making a purchase.

Similarly, the ideal listing for a restaurant business would be Yelp or a Google Business listing.

Based on the nature of your business, you should create listings that bring value. In many cases, businesses create too many listings that can be difficult to manage. Ideally, you should have 2-3 listings that provide essential information about your business such as your location, reviews, and other key info.

#3: Offer a free trial of your service

If your business involves selling access to software or similar digital products, offering a free trial is a great practice. A free trial allows prospective customers to get a sneak peek of your software. This is the best way to drive conversions and promote your software.

When you remove the option of a free trial, customers may not be able to understand the features your product offers.

This is a viable strategy for software but may not work for physical products. In case you are selling physical products, it’s a good idea to offer a decent refund policy to ease customer concerns before they make a purchase.

Whether you have an ecommerce store or an online SaaS business, addressing key customer pain points helps improve your conversion rate.

#4: Drive and optimize online reviews

How important are reviews? According to a report, 93% of customers read online reviews before making a purchase.

In order to promote your business online, you need to get reviews for your products and services. If you have an ecommerce store, you can earn product reviews directly on your website or app. Besides getting reviews on your website, you can also encourage customers to leave reviews on third-party platforms.

As mentioned previously, each field has its own communities and platforms. For restaurants, getting positive Yelp reviews can be a big business boost. Software companies can similarly benefit from positive reviews on platforms like TrustPilot and G2.

#5: Use SEO to enhance search visibility

Search engine optimization is one of the essential tenets of online marketing. It’s basically a set of guidelines to optimize your website’s content and structure to rank well on search engines. As a marketing technique, SEO is limited to websites only. It doesn’t deliver results as quickly as a paid technique would, but it’s the best way to build long-term traffic to your website.

So how do you optimize your website for search engine visibility? If you’re using a website CMS, you can use the in-built tools to optimize certain aspects of your website. For more in-depth SEO work, it’s probably a good idea to hire an SEO team or outsource the work. Doing this will build your online presence on search engines and reduce your marketing costs.

#6: Leverage email marketing outreach

Email marketing is a key part of running an online business. Whether you plan to sell products online or have a simple blog with a newsletter, email marketing is an essential marketing practice.

Any time a customer purchases a product, signs up for a service you offer, or sends a contact form query, email marketing helps sync your contacts and automates the emails you send to your customers.

Email marketing often gets overlooked as other marketing channels like SEO, paid ads, influencer marketing, and more are far more intensive. This doesn’t diminish is its inherent value though. Statistics show that the ROI for every dollar spent on email marketing is $36. Very few marketing techniques promise such as a return on investment.

So how can you make email marketing work for your business? First, it’s a good idea to sign up for an email marketing platform that’s fully synced with your primary digital assets (your website or app). These platforms allow you to set up automation based on common actions like orders, service requests, and so on.

You can also use these platforms for bulk email blasts. It’s by far the best way to get guaranteed visibility from customers and users who have a history of interacting with your website or app.

#7: Advertise via paid search ads

Paid search is perhaps the most popular outbound marketing practice today. Getting sustainable organic visibility takes time and not all businesses have the time to optimize their website’s SEO and wait for results and traffic to materialize.

Search ads allow businesses to grow their search visibility on a targeted set cluster of keywords. The cost of running such a campaign depends on the competition for your target keywords.  

Running a successful search ad campaign would involve a significant learning curve. Nailing search intent and demand can be difficult. This is not to mention the various features within the ads platform you need to understand and master, including the marketing budget and choosing the keywords.  

#8: Run social media ads

Social media is an essential part of growing your online business. In fact, most businesses first consider social media for online marketing and not a website or mobile app.

In marketing, you need to reach your audience and social media ads can help you reach them. The most popular social media platform to run ads on Facebook. With Facebook, you can create an ad, choose your audience, set a budget, and start running your campaign.

If you have an Instagram account, you can simultaneously run a paid campaign via Facebook. Besides Facebook and Instagram, you can choose other platforms and analyze which works best for your business.

#9: Move your core business online

Simply starting a website or app doesn’t mean you’ve moved your business online. In fact, most small businesses simply create static websites to have a placeholder online.

Moving your core business online means migrating your online workflow and taking it to a digital platform. For example, let’s assume you have a retail store and a simple website. Moving your business online would mean selling your inventory online via your own website.

There are a number of no-code tools that allow you to create online applications for a number of use cases. WooCommerce allows you to create an ecommerce store within your WordPress site.

Similarly, you can use other web platforms like Teachable to create an online learning website.

Moving your core business online doesn’t mean you should stop your offline business. It simply enhances the impressions you get and makes your business more efficient.

#10: Publish press releases

Publishing a press release is a great way to grow the visibility of your business. There are many companies and platforms where you can submit a press release and choose a distribution package. The press release will be distributed to multiple news websites where visitors can learn more about your business.

Generally, a press release is published by companies that already have a sustainable pool of customers and traffic. It’s a good idea to publish it when there’s a significant event associated with your business, like a festive sale campaign, the introduction of a new line of products or features, or anything significant to your company.

A press release can also help with giving your traffic a boost, and even enhance your backlink profile, an essential SEO KPI.

#11: Create and publish new content

Whatever your online marketing strategy is, content is bound to play a crucial part in it.

There are a number of platforms you can publish content on. For starters, you can start posting blogs on your website itself. Not only does this help with adding weight and authority to your website, but it’s also a great way to enhance SEO optimality.

With a blog, you can grow your site’s authority on a particular topic. Search engines like Google reward websites that display EAT attributes. EAT refers to expertise, authority, and trust. It’s used by Google to measure the authority of a website in a given domain.

Since audio and video content is growing in popularity, you can consider creating a YouTube channel or a podcast and further grow your impressions.

This is a good idea especially if your online presence is not centered on selling products or services, but on monetizing traffic. A good example would be a news website. A YouTube channel or podcast is perfect to complement your website.

#12: Audit your digital assets

Over time, your business may evolve or change. This can mean the introduction of a new logo or branding name, a new line of services or products, or simply a change of address.

While you may update your website or mobile app when this change takes place, it’s also essential to audit other listings and refurbish any outdated information.

Customers may discover you through business listings on Google, Trustpilot, Yelp, or any other platform relevant to your business. It’s a good idea to ensure all your business assets are up to date with accurate information.

#13: Work with popular influencers

Influencer marketing is a big part of scaling a growing business. Let’s assume you have a decent online business with steady growth in sales and traffic. At such a stage, every business needs an inflection point to start growing exponentially.

For many businesses, influencer marketing is the best way to do this. If you choose an influencer popular in your domain, you can potentially reach millions of relevant people in your niche.

Based on your business specifics, the right influencer may be a creator on YouTube or an Instagram personality. Contacting influencers is not difficult as many provide their business email on their social profiles. Social media DMs are also a viable channel to approach influencers and propose a collaboration.

#14: Do guest post outreach

Guest posting is not just an SEO practice. In the early days of blogging, guest posting was seen as a way for writers to grow their credibility.

In practice, you should view guest posting in the same way. Many top websites accept guest posts as long as they provide real value to their audience. All you need to do is have the right pitch for the website.

Top websites don’t simply accept guest posts without vetting the brand or company associated with the writer. When writing your pitch, you should introduce yourself, your company, and previous guest posts you’ve published.

Backlinks are a byproduct of guest posting. Most websites will mention the number of links they allow in a guest post in their email communications with you, thus making things easier.

#15: Partner with businesses that complement your products

Not all businesses are competitors. If you’re selling socks, a partnership with a shoe company is logical as there’s a clear audience overlap.

Similarly, you should be able to find other online websites and brands that closely complement your business. Many brands have business development executives that are solely tasked with finding lucrative sales and business opportunities

Like guest post outreach, this can take time and requires a lot of communication before something concrete materializes. As a way to promote your business, it’s not something that’s ideal for a business just getting off the ground.

A partnership only works if the other company can also service some value from the proposal. As a new online business, your digital presence may not be sizable enough to attract the right partners. You should thus pursue business partnerships only after developing a significant online presence.

#16: Offer robust customer support

When it comes to promoting a business, customer support may not be the first idea that pops into your mind. Businesses generally associate business promotion with new customer acquisition.

Customer retention is also important. A business study has shown that increasing customer retention by 5% can enhance revenue by 25-95%.

So how can you improve retention and reduce churn? Customer support plays a big role in this regard. You should have a dedicated team to manage customer support for your business.

How should you offer customer support? This depends on the type of resources you can spare for customer support. Simple email support is a good place to start, and as your business grows, you can integrate other channels of communication like customer chat, call support, and more.

Read: The unlimited benefits of integrating chat feature in your mobile app

#17: Build your own online community

As your business grows, no matter how much customer support you offer, it may not be enough. In such a case, building a community can help.

You may have seen many companies have a separate community page where users can ask questions and get answers. Creating such a forum basically reduces the burden on your customer support team as users can get answers from other customers.

You can even create a Facebook group where you allow customers to freely ask questions about your products and services. Naturally, it’s only viable to start a community when you have a critical volume of customers.

There are plenty of tools that allow you to add a community section to your website.

#18: Take inspiration from your competitors

Every business tries to analyze what its competitors are up to. This is the case with online marketing as well. If your competitors are outperforming you, it’s not a bad idea to analyze their marketing infrastructure.

Taking inspiration from competitors doesn’t necessarily mean you should copy them. In any domain, businesses always try to do the same activity better than their competitors.

  • Do your competitors run social ads? See if you can improve on their campaigns.
  • Do your competitors invest a lot of resources in SEO? Try to see which SEO opportunities you’re not leveraging yet.
  • Do you see influencers promoting your competitors? See how it’s working for them and if your own business could benefit from influencer marketing.

By in large, there are no unique marketing methods. Most competent marketers know all the marketing channels that a business can leverage. By analyzing competitors, you get information on which methods actually work and implement them for your own business.

#19: Set up regular sale campaigns

It’s crucial to engage and excite customers and users about your business. Publishing content is one way of doing this, but that may not be enough to grow your revenues. You essentially need to incentivize customers to buy the products and services you’re selling online.

Running a sales campaign isn’t just about slapping a discount label on your products. You need to integrate your sales campaign with your overall marketing strategy.

How does this work? You essentially need to do market research and figure out what type of sales campaign your audience would react positively to. Next, you need to figure out how to implement the specifics of the sales campaign on your website, app, or both.

Read: How to run a successful sales campaign on your WooCommerce store?

#20: Incentivize customer loyalty with rewards

As your customer base grows, you will also see an increase in churn. This is because managing a large base of customers is significantly more difficult.

With an increase in churn, one main way to manage and even enhance retention is to keep your loyal customers happy.

What are the attributes of loyal customers? The exact details may vary, but loyal customers are typically those who continue to purchase the products and services offered by a business over a long period of time.

Rewarding loyal customers can help you keep your churn in check. In addition, loyal customers can further refer new people to your business and reduce your customer acquisition costs.

#21: Create an affiliate network

Lastly, you can use affiliate marketing to grow your online visibility. If you’re selling products that provide value, you can set up an affiliate program. Nearly every top brand in the market has an affiliate program that allows businesses and professionals to monetize their online presence by promoting third-party products.

Affiliate marketing can reduce your acquisition costs as dedicated affiliates will promote your products through their own channels and resources. You only need to pay your affiliates when they refer paid customers to your business.

There are a number of platforms you can use to set up an affiliate platform for your business. SaaS platforms like Tapfilliate allow you to set up an affiliate program and automatically manage affiliate onboarding, analytics, and payouts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Have questions about promoting your business? Here are answers to a few commonly asked questions about promoting and marketing a business.

How can I promote my small business?

There are many ways you can promote your business. The following points briefly explain some ways you can get started:

  • Optimize your business website for the best SEO practices and start ranking on relevant search terms. 
  • Promote your products and services on social media. You can also use paid social media ads to market your business effectively. 
  • Publish unique content that attracts your audience to your website. You can start with simple blogs and later branch out with videos and podcasts.
  • Build a mobile app for your business in order to get more impressions and visibility amongst mobile users. 
  • Advertise via paid search ads and get visibility on relevant and high-volume keywords. 

There’s no magic formula to promote a business as every company has its own unique needs and audience. 

How can I advertise my business for free?

By definition, advertising is essentially sponsored marketing communication. So it’s not technically possible to advertise your business for free. You can however market your business for free in some cases. For example, it doesn’t cost anything to list your business on Google. Similarly, there are other ways to promote your business. 

How do I get more customers for my business?

Every business looks for more customers. The best way to discover new customers is to market your products and services. While businesses nowadays prefer online marketing to acquire new customers, you can choose offline marketing and advertising as well. 

If you’re able to market your business to the right audience and nail the rest of the campaign, you should be able to get more customers. 

How do I attract and retain customers?

The best way to attract customers is to market your business properly. Find the right marketing channels and create good content to attract customers. 

Keeping customers is a different subject and an entire vertical in itself. Optimizing customer retention and lowering churn is something every business is invested in. Generally, customer retention comes down to improving the products or services your business is offering. If you’re able to improve your offering over time, customers will not have a reason to leave. 

In conclusion

Want to promote your business? You’re not alone. In a saturated online space, it can seem difficult (even impossible) to effectively promote your business and grow.

Whether you have a website or a WordPress app, you need to find a way to promote it online. This article covers all the marketing promotion methods you can use to grow your business. Whether you’re just starting to build your presence online, or already have an established brand, the techniques covered here should help.

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