If You're in One of These 5 Industries, You Should Be Marketing Your Business
If you’ve spent years training in an industry, one of your proudest moments is when you branch out and start your own business. Depending on how you got there, you might have a solid list of clients from previous roles, and you may even have a small but regular stream of new customers coming through from referrals. But is it enough to not only sustain but grow your business too? Marketing activity enables you to engage with existing and potential customers. It helps people find out more about you and understand what puts you above the competition. Many business owners, however, are so busy working, they have little time to do anything else. If you work in these five industries, you will reap the benefits if you take the time to create a marketing strategy.
Law
Law is a complex industry made up of specialisms. When people purchase a law service, it’s because they have a problem they need solving. They buy a set of skills in the area they have a problem; it could include family, corporate, international or criminal law. Without having a law firm marketing campaign, a potential customer may know you practice law but have no way of knowing whether you can help them or not. And that’s if they’ve heard of you at all. Marketing helps people find you because they need your expertise. Search marketing and content marketing are excellent channels for law firms. Search – also known as PPC and SEO – is the first thing most people do when looking for a lawyer; creating knowledgeable, engaging content affirms your status as an expert in the field and links people back to your website.
Beauty
Marketing is essential for small businesses, and it’s especially powerful for those that offer a visual end product. Social media has forever changed how hairstylists, brow technicians and nail artists market themselves. An industry once built almost entirely upon word of mouth recommendations now thrives on people being able to see for themselves how talented someone is. Today, anyone working in beauty can generate high demand for their services by showcasing their work with before and after pictures and by using relevant hashtags so potential customers can find their profile even if they don’t follow them.
Trade
Trades businesses such as plumbers, electricians, HVAC engineers and flooring specialists flourish when they integrate digital marketing efforts into their business plan. Workers who spend so much of their time away from a desk environment haven’t the opportunity to be so manual in their communication. Marketing enables them to engage with their audience without having to be active in real-time. Scheduling social posts and useful content helps support their SEO efforts, and regular newsletters keep customers abreast of the latest news and offers. The more you stay in touch with your customer base, the less likely they are to go elsewhere.
Childcare
If you’re going to advertise your business, you need to be where your audience is. The last decade has seen a rise in digital moms – moms who use digital platforms to connect with one another. Through Facebook groups and online forums, they ask for advice, offer opinions, share photos and sometimes just vent. If you work in the childcare industry, the best way to promote your business is to become part of this world. But the key is to think local. There’s no point advertising nationally if you’re an independent childcare provider operating in one city, which is why digital marketing is so instrumental to your success. You can go hyper-local, targeting online users by geolocation. It enables you to focus your budget where it makes the greatest impact.
You might be the very best at what you do, but years of training and honing your skills mean nothing if potential customers don’t even know you exist. No one expects you to be an expert marketer on top of everything else; hire a marketing agency or specialist team to support your business and watch the customers come flocking.
