For small businesses, an effective marketing strategy is essential to expanding your reach and engaging your audience. Crafting a well-thought-out marketing strategy will not only allow you to do both, but it can also ease the stress of day-to-day marketing efforts to have a plan in place that ensures your business is engaging in marketing efforts consistently that support your business’s marketing goals.
What is a Marketing Strategy?
Simply stated, a marketing strategy is a comprehensive plan made to promote a business’s product or service. A marketing strategy should outline the marketing objectives and channels that the business will use to engage with new and existing customers. Market research, target audience identification, positioning, and selection of desired marketing channels are important elements to incorporate into an effective marketing strategy.
For the small business owner, creating a marketing strategy that aligns with your business’s goals is an investment not taken lightly. Marketing efforts are an additional expense, and you want to be sure that your plan is comprehensive and will work to help you achieve your desired growth. Combining the use of several marketing channels is often a way in which small business owners can maximize their marketing dollars and create the most effective marketing strategy.
What is Multi-Channel Marketing?
Multi-channel marketing refers to the use of multiple marketing channels in creating a marketing strategy for a business. A marketing channel is any pathway through which businesses promote their products or services. Think, for a moment, about the advertisements or promotional content that you have engaged with recently. Whether it be through a television commercial, an email, or a social media post, the advertisement was curated for the specific marketing channel through which it found you. For example, if you have recently received an email from your favorite shop about a promotion on a certain item, the business utilized the email marketing channel to advertise to you.
While there are many different marketing channels through which small business owners can promote their products or services, combining multiple channels to create a comprehensive marketing strategy can be more effective in reaching your customers than going all-in on any singular channel.
Why Utilize Multiple Marketing Channels?
In short, utilizing a variety of marketing channels to promote your small business allows you to reach different segments of your customer base. Additionally, multiple marketing channels can work in tandem with one another to create a full picture of your business and engage thoughtfully with your customers to generate store traffic. One of the most effective ways for small businesses to capitalize on the benefits of multi-channel marketing is by utilizing the VLC Three—social media, email, and website marketing.
Multi-Channel Marketing: The VLC Three
At The VAN LEUVEN Company, the VLC Three refers to the use of the social media, email, and website marketing channels to market a client’s business. Each of these marketing channels on their own are valuable, but strategizing with these three channels in mind allows for a more comprehensive marketing strategy to be put into place and more customer segments to be reached.
In the next section, we will discuss the merits of each channel individually and in conjunction with one another.
Elements of the VLC Three
The VLC Three is composed of the social media, email, and website marketing channels working together to capture engagement from various audience segments, provide a fuller picture of your business, and engage consistently over multiple platforms. While each channel can perform marketing functions individually, marketing efforts across all three are more effective when linked together under an overarching marketing strategy.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is one of the most important marketing channels for small businesses to be utilizing today. No longer just for engaging with family and friends, consumers today utilize social media to engage with their favorite brands, making it a valuable method of forming meaningful and lasting relationships with customers for businesses of all sizes.
There are many platforms that businesses may choose to utilize in their social media marketing; however, the most beneficial platforms for each business will vary depending on the brand’s target audience. TikTok has become a titan in the world of social media marketing, amassing over one billion subscribers, making it a valuable platform for businesses to spend time creating and sharing content on. Facebook remains the largest social networking site, with just under 3 billion monthly users, meaning that small businesses not taking advantage of the site are missing out on engagement opportunities with current and prospective customers. Other social media sites, such as Instagram, LinkedIN, YouTube, are also beneficial for small business owners to take advantage of.
Through different social media platforms, your business can engage with new and existing customers, turning online interactions into in-person sales. When utilizing social media marketing, it is important for small businesses to remember that personalization, regular posting, and engaging content are the pillars of success when it comes to increasing your brand awareness and driving customer engagement.
To learn more about the social media marketing channel, read more in our blog The Essential Tools in Your Marketing Tool Belt: Social Media Marketing.
Email Marketing
Email marketing refers to any marketing communication that originates over email, namely in reference to specially designed email campaigns that target a business’s potential or existing customers. Email marketing is an incredibly powerful tool for the small business owner in terms of driving customer traffic and increasing brand awareness.
Email marketing provides businesses with the opportunity to engage customers with a variety of content. Depending on your goals, email campaigns can look very different from business to business. For small businesses looking to make connections with customers, share information, or bring people into their store, a monthly newsletter is a great way to do so. Once a month, customers receive an email campaign highlighting upcoming events, promotions, store updates, and more, putting your business on their radar while calling the consumer to action.
When conducting email marketing, it is important to utilize analytics to measure your campaign’s performance. Many email marketing tools report analytics such as open rate, click rate, unsubscribe rate, and more shortly after the campaign’s initial send. From here, small businesses can adjust their email marketing strategy to make better connections with their audience.
To read more about effective email marketing, visit our blog Engage Customers with Email Marketing.
Website Marketing
Website marketing references the strategies and tactics used to attract visitors to a website, convert those visitors into leads or customers, and retain them for long-term engagement. Website marketing encompasses a wide range of activities, including search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and more.
For the consumer, a brand’s website is the hub where information can be quickly and easily found. If your website is not secure, fast-loading, and mobile-friendly, a frustrating user experience can contribute to the loss of a sale. Investing in a website that is built to provide your customers with a hassle-free, secure experience is essential for any small business.
Read more about the website marketing channel in our blog Engage Customers with Website Marketing.
What are the Benefits of Utilizing the VLC Three?
By utilizing the social media, email, and website marketing channels together, small business owners can create links between the different channels to maximize their marketing dollars spent. Take, for example, a monthly email newsletter that is sent out to both current and potential customers. Within this monthly newsletter, a small business may include a call-to-action to follow the business on their social media platforms or a direct link to their website with a call-to-action for the customer to shop now. In just one email communication, the small business has engaged the customer with three different marketing channels, increasing brand awareness and recognition while creating a meaningful connection with the customer.
Marketing Strategy by The VAN LEUVEN Company
At The VAN LEUVEN Company, we are committed to helping small businesses maximize their results from their marketing dollars spent. We value honesty, integrity, and transparency in our business practices, and we create marketing strategies tailored to the unique needs of your business to help you achieve your goals.
To learn more about how our team of marketing strategists can help your small business grow, contact us today to get in touch with one of our team members.