Make your marketing matter

If your marketing feels ad hoc or enquiry slows down, we tend to put pressure on ourselves to “do more marketing”. Ramp up advertising, get onto all the socials, stand outside + wave a sign around. It’s not these things can’t help – but honestly, the best marketing you can do is the right things, more consistently. Ie not just when things are quiet or when you notice that you haven’t posted to FB for two months (no judgement – we have ALL been there!!!).

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This Small Business Month, we’ve been sharing tips for our top five marketing activities that are relevant to most businesses. They are:

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1. The biggie – your website. It’s not “set + forget”. If it’s outdated, unclear or hard to navigate, people move on, fast. Your website should make it easy for someone to understand what you do, who it’s for + what they should do next to do business with you.

2. Branding – which doesn’t just mean your logo. It’s how people recognise, remember + talk about you. Strong branding creates familiarity, which makes people more likely to think of you when they’re ready to buy.

3. Social media is another big one – unfortunately random posting tends to get random results. Your socials should support your business goals, not just fill a feed. The businesses doing this well are usually the ones sharing useful information, showing personality + consistently reminding people they exist.

4. Email marketing is massively underrated – your database is one of your best marketing assets, because these people already know you. Staying in touch with past clients + warm leads keeps you front of mind without needing to constantly chase brand new people.

5. And finally – advertising. Running ads isn’t a strategy on its own. Placement, targeting + messaging are what drive results. You can spend a lot of money getting “eyeballs”, but if they’re not the right eyeballs, it won’t do much for your business.

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The other thing worth remembering is that these activities don’t necessarily work in isolation. Someone might discover you on social media, click through to your website, sign up to your emails, then finally enquire months later after hearing your name come up again through word of mouth. Marketing is rarely one magic post, ad or email that suddenly changes everything – it’s usually a combination of touchpoints that build familiarity + trust over time.  

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Just think of your own purchasing behaviour. What’s something you bought recently from a business you haven’t bought from before – did you just get a recommendation, call them up + pay them for their services? Chances are, no.

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Good marketing usually comes back to the same thing – being visible with the right people, in the right way, often enough to be remembered when it counts. If you’d like a hand with that, the crew at Rebel Nation would love to help – check us out at rebelnation.com.au.

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