If you’re running a small business and you want to scale to the next level, then you may be considering the benefits of partnerships, buyouts or opening offices in new locations. But one of the best ways to truly scale your business in today’s age is through digital marketing, and below, we’ve rounded up a few techniques that you should try out if you want to expand your brand.
Drive more leads through SEO
Use search engine optimisation (SEO) to drive more leads to your website and reduce the need for hiring new sales staff. There are two options to consider when you’re planning an SEO campaign for your business; you could either hire an SEO in house to complete both the technical and outreach SEO for your business, or you could outsource to an agency offering SEO for small businesses. Both options have their benefits and drawbacks; hiring in house gives you more control, but it can be more expensive and require regular training and development. Outsourcing takes the pressure out of finding the right SEO and ensures you’re always getting a first-class service, but it increases your marketing reliance on other companies.
Annihilate a competitor through PPC
If you want to get ahead of your competitors but they’re outranking you for competitive terms on search engines and they’re promoting their services on social media, then you should invest in paid marketing techniques to annihilate them. Set up AdWords and Bing Ads campaigns that match any keywords your competitors are ranking for – that way, you’ll show up at the top of the results pages, even when a customer is searching for your competition directly. While this won’t always work, you should be able to attract some new customers from it and steal their sales.
If you do choose to go down this aggressive anti-competition method, though, you should be prepared to fight. You’ll no doubt make some enemies by paying for adverts on your competitors turf, so only go ahead if you’re sure that you want to compete against them. They may follow suit with their own competitive PPC campaigns and outbid yours, and it could get nasty.
Boost business through affiliate marketing
Another popular marketing method for small and medium-sized businesses looking to expand without risking capital or time is affiliate marketing. By offering a bounty or referral percentage for every new customer an affiliate attracts, you can effectively remove the need for traditional marketing and leave it in the hands of your customers and affiliates. Of course, the packages that you offer must be competitive and attractive to both affiliates and new potential customers, so we recommend at least a 20% bounty, or adopting a ‘refer a friend’ programme instead.
Wrapping up
If you’re planning on growing your business, consider starting on boosting your digital marketing investment and see where it takes you. New customers are just around the corner – you just have to work hard to find them and encourage them to buy your products and services.