10 Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Professional Business in 2023
No matter how great your service is, you won't be able to grow your professional business without reaching a larger audience. Luckily, there are many powerful marketing strategies that you can use to increase your reach and grow your business. So, whether you're just starting out or looking to take your business to the next level, read on for some helpful advice! In this article, we'll explore some of the most effective marketing strategies for businesses of all sizes and budgets.
Increase Your Reach and Grow Your Business With These Proven Strategies
1. Business Website
Create a professional-looking, search-engine-optimized website for your business that potential clients can find and referral sources can share. Review and update your website content regularly to signal to Google that your business is active and fresh, valuable content is available to your audience. Ensure all links work and that contact information, social media icons, services, and pricing are current.
2. Online Busines Listings
Online business listings in location and industry-specific directories are excellent opportunities for any professional business to increase visibility and be easily found by their ideal clients when they are ready to hire someone. The most important thing is to keep your business name, address, and phone number current at all times and consistent across all online listings you choose to use.
Verified listings on search engine platforms like Google Business and Bing help you get found in local searches and allow you to ensure your public-facing business information is accurate.
Social media business pages, such as Facebook Business and LinkedIn CompanyPages, are indexed by search engines and are excellent options for professional providers.
Listings on business sites such as the Better Business Bureau and the Chamber of Commerce can establish customer trust and help build credibility in your industry.
Industry-specific directories allow you to be found by clients looking for services that match your expertise and specific offerings. For example, professional counselors might use Psychology Today for people searching for a therapist. Attorneys may use AVVO, and healthcare providers, Healthgrades.
3. Email List
Your marketing email list is your most valuable business communication tool. Most people check their email daily, but not necessarily brand social media pages or websites.
Focus on growing your email list. Use a QR code for a potential lead or contact to scan and join. Provide an opt-in email link on your website and social media pages to capture visitors interested in your services.
Using email to follow up and stay in touch with new contacts, leads, and referral sources is at the heart of digital marketing. Email marketing is known to have a high return on investment. It is also one of the most overlooked strategies because there is a terrible myth that email marketing is dead.
Ponder this. Before you can buy anything online or get a brand’s discount code or freebie, you must give them your email address, right? And what happens after that? You get added to their email marketing list! Now they can keep in touch with you on their terms and timeline. They also use it to target you on social media when running ads. Genius right!!
4. Marketing Newsletters
Incorporate email newsletters into your marketing to keep clients and referral sources informed of current events, promotions, and educational blog articles. Try starting once a month with a consistent pace if resources are limited. Add additional emails in between when you have other news to share. Be sure to review your analytics often to see how your audience responds and adjust accordingly.
5. Blog Articles
Add helpful blog articles to your website relevant to your client's needs and share them regularly. Use good SEO formatting and keywords in your articles to ensure they appear higher in search engine results.
Use your blog posts to fuel the rest of your content marketing to increase visibility and attract more leads. Share on social media and with your email list to reach a wider audience and drive more traffic to your website.
Spin blog posts into content gold by splintering each section into smaller bits to share on social media and in different formats, such as infographics, videos, and talking points on podcasts and YouTube.
6. Social Media Profiles
Review and update your social media account profiles. Ensure business profiles are current and visually on brand. If managing multiple platforms is taxing, choose one or two best accounts for your audience that you also enjoy and focus on those only. Unpublish or deactivate accounts that you do not plan to use for now.
Also, optimize your personal profile by including your social business accounts in the "About" section. Current and new contacts can quickly become aware of your business and connect to you there if interested. Often you will find you have a few supportive friends and colleagues on your business page that share your post with their friends. This greatly increases your chances of getting noticed and expanding your reach.
7. Ask for Referrals
Talk to people about what you do. You may be surprised who they know that can use your services. Referrals from a trusted friend or colleague are valuable warm leads. Be sure to invite them to follow you on social media and subscribe to your email list to stay updated on your business happenings and services.
It is also essential to ask for referrals. When someone asks you "how's business is going," it's common to say "great"! Take it further to let them know what you have going on and if you are open to referrals. This shows that you are not only confident in what you do but are actively working and looking to expand, creating a positive image.
8. Online Reviews
Online reviews not only boost your SEO and help you get found online, but they significantly impact a potential client’s confidence in your services and decision to contact you. They also have a more prolonged presence than social media posts. Be mindful of any professional regulations that prohibit the solicitation of patient and client reviews due to HIPAA and other privacy laws. If this applies to your profession, you can request reviews from fellow professionals and referral sources who can speak to your excellent services.
9. Press Releases
Share your events, expanded services, and company awards through press releases. Post it to your website blog, share it on social media, and submit it to your professional industry and business community publications. If printed by other sources, use the opportunity to share it on social media and with your email subscribers.
10. Become A Guest
Do you like to write, talk, or teach? Consider writing guest articles for others in your industry or being a guest speaker on podcasts or events. Both expand your reach to hundreds or thousands of new contacts and give potential clients and referral sources a sense of your expertise and unique personality.
Guest blog posts and podcast episodes with links to your website are also great for more website traffic. Photos from speaker events make for great promotional and social media content. Remember to thank and tag the organization or business for even more exposure and reach.
By the way, if you are interested in being a guest author for Dreamtime Marketing, apply today!
Conclusion
These ten marketing strategies certainly do not entail every possible option, but they offer a solid foundation for success. If it has been a while since you reviewed your marketing strategies, I challenge you to block out time this month to do it.
Download the checklist below. Use it for auditing your current efforts and planning new strategies to reach more clients and grow your business this year and beyond.
Post Updated on 02-07-2023
ABOUT DREAMTIME MARKETING
Dreamtime Marketing is a Baton Rouge-based marketing consultancy that works with service-based professionals and non-profit organizations to develop and strengthen in-house marketing programs. We offer a range of services to ignite your marketing program. Discover the best options for you when you schedule a free discovery consultation.
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