So, you’ve launched a business? That’s great! Now the next step is promoting it so that you can start driving customers to buy your products and services.
Luckily, this is not as expensive or complicated as it once was. There are plenty of easy ways to promote your business and a mountain of tools and resources available to help you. In this article, we’ll be rounding those up, so you can get started.
How to promote your business with social media
Setting up social media pages is a must for building an online presence – it’s a great way to direct users back to your website and interact with your potential customers. Avoid setting up on every single one and just choose the platforms that make the most sense for your business, so you can put as much time and energy into running them as possible. Facebook is one of the most popular social platforms. You can learn how to create and manage a Facebook Business page with this guide.
And for when you can’t be there – you’ll want to automate. Use tools like Hootsuite or Buffer to plan and schedule your social media posts in advance so you can avoid long gaps of silence during busier business periods.
If you want to create stunning images to help you stand out on social media, check out Over by GoDaddy. It's an easy-to-use tool that lets anyone create top-quality images. Even better, if you use GoDaddy Websites + Marketing you get access to Over as part of your plan.
How to promote your business with email marketing
One of the very best ways of promoting your business is by creating a mailing list and getting your customers to sign up.
Customers that subscribe to your email list are inviting you to contact them directly with your content, offers and information. Creating email campaigns can be a breeze, even if you have no experience at all. The GoDaddy Email Marketing tool is perfect for everyone from beginners to professionals, allowing you to create your own email campaigns in minutes, using professional, mobile-ready designs and connects to your website or social media accounts.
Remember that you should have a good mix of content and a balance in how many purely sales-related emails you’re sending out. Make sure you’re providing value in every email you send and encourage the recipients to share them.
How to promote your business with paid social ads
Social media is one of the most effective marketing tools – therefore it’s no surprise that it’s extremely saturated. If you want your content to stand out online, you could take advantage of paid advertising on your chosen platform.
Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Linkedin all offer the ability to pay to promote your content, but Facebook has the most advanced targeting abilities.
Tips for using social media paid ads
Choose the right platform – where should you advertise? You want to choose the social media channel where your target audience spends the majority of their time. You also want to make sure that you choose the right channel for your business – i.e. – don’t choose Instagram if your business does not have visual appeal.
Set a budget – paid ads can get expensive pretty quickly, so it’s important to figure out how long or often you want to run the ad for - and how much you can afford to spend.
Decide your aim – What do you want to get out of your ad? Clicks to your website? Likes on your page? Increased brand awareness and visibility? Conversions? Tailor your ad based on what you want to get out of it; decide what kind of ad campaign makes sense for your business and put a strategy in place rather than throwing a quick ad together and hoping for the best.
For more information on using paid social ads, check out this article.
How to promote your business with pay-per-click ads
If paid social media advertisements aren’t bringing in the results you want to see, you could also try signing up to Google Ads. Rather than promoting your products and services across social media channels, promote your website on Google’s search engine results and open yourself up to an even bigger audience. You can choose to target local customers or people all over the world, and you can choose from a range of different advertisements – from text to YouTube video.
Budget will again be important for you to consider, but you’ll only pay for the customers that click your advertisements.
How to promote your business with SEO
You’ll want to ensure that your business shows up in search results for customers searching in your location. You’ll do this through search engine optimization – which isn’t as complex as it may sound.
First, be sure to get your business set up on two of the biggest search engines – Google My Business and Bing Places - by creating business profiles for each one. This will help you show up in Maps and search engine results for relevant local queries. You’ll have to be sure to keep your business page up-to-date and interact with customers.
GoDaddy Website Builder customers can set up their Google My Business profile through their WSB account.
You can learn more about why a Google My Business listing is important by reading this article.
If you want to branch out from just local searches and increase your online visibility in a quick and easy way, you could try the DIY SEO tool Search Engine Visibility from GoDaddy or even hire a GoDaddy SEO expert.
The SEO tool will scan your website for changes you can make to optimise your website for the biggest search engines and walk you through them step-by-step.
GoDaddy SEO Services will provide you with your own expert SEO team that will work on your account and help your business grow.
You can also follow this guide to improving your SEO rankings.
How to promote your business with influencer marketing
Influencers are people with large social media followings. If you can find one in your chosen field and get them to share your content, you’ll be exposing your business to a lot of potential customers.
How can you find influencers in your field? Start by doing a Google search for a topic that relates to your business and note the creators of the content that comes up.
You could also try typing your keywords into a tool like BuzzSumo, which will then bring up the most shared content across all the most popular social media channels.
Another good tool for finding influencers is Twitter. Simply search the hashtags related to your business and see whose content is coming out on top.
Once you’ve determined the biggest voices in your field, you’ll need to reach out to them and ask them to share your content. But don’t do this straight away! Influencer marketing takes time because you need to get noticed by them and build up a rapport first. Start by sharing and commenting on their content and really taking an interest in what they do before diving in and asking for a repost.
Tips for influencer marketing
Go for micro-influencers – their follower numbers may be smaller than macro influencers (anything from around 1,000 to 50,000) but their audiences tend to be more engaged and loyal as the influencer can reach larger numbers with tailored content. They also come with a smaller price tag.
Your customers can also be influencers – Sign up to a review site like TrustPilot and encourage existing customers to leave reviews of your product or service. The more positive reviews you can drum up, the more potential customers will trust your brand.
Try guest blogging – A few social media reposts are great, but influencer marketing can go much further than that. If you can get your blog content on to an influencer’s blog, you’re again exposing yourself to a huge amount of people who could potentially be interested in your services.
So now you have a few ideas on how to promote your business, which will you try first?
