Local businesses are setting their goals for the year ahead. Businesses make resolutions to be more profitable, cut costs and better serve their clients and customers. The goal is, almost always, to boost sales in the coming year.
Local businesses are finding savvy ways to meet the demands of their clients and customers with better service and offerings.
1. Brand Building
Building a brand is an essential part of today’s business. My local pizza shop’s owner always come to my table to thank me for supporting a local business, and the owner will even provide free drinks on special occasions.
The owner is building her brand, and it goes beyond a custom packaging box and logos.
Brand building has several steps that need to be met:
- Storefront or office branding
- Websites
- Social media accounts
- Signage
- Packaging
And don’t think that packaging doesn’t matter: it does. The Packaging Pro, a company that provides packaging solutions, works with some of the world’s biggest brands: IKEA, LG, Nike, Lenovo and others.
If big brands are focusing on branding even when they’re world-known, small brands need to do the same.
Consistent communication is essential. There are a lot of great places to start learning about building a brand: Fresh Sparks, Entrepreneur and HubSpot are all great places to start.
2. Online Marketing
Even local pizza joints and dentists need to get into online marketing. Businesses can no longer ignore the impact online marketing has on a business. And there are several ways that businesses are getting started with online marketing this year:
- Social Media. Being social is a good thing. Claiming your business’ page on Facebook is a start, but you also need to Tweet, retweet, post photos to Instagram (using the right hash tags to drive traffic) and connect with customers on Facebook.
- Content. The rise of content marketing has made it a necessity to build a website and a blog. A general overview of content marketing is the creation of content and the marketing of content via social media, outreach and PPC (among many others).
- Paid. Paid advertising gets businesses in front of the right audience quickly. Facebook Ads is a good start, but there are other options, such as Google AdWords and buying advertising space on local sites.
Online marketing is key in 2018 to promote any local business.
3. Delegate Tasks
Small business owners work a lot. Statistics show that 30% of owners work 50 – 59 hours a week. Some owners work more, some work less. Business owners often take on multiple roles that are keeping their business from growing.
Delegating tasks is an essential part of business.
Hiring employees is a great start, but when this isn’t possible, virtual assistants or other business owners can help. Small business owners are cutting down their time working on menial tasks or tasks that are not their specialty, including:
- Accounting
- Marketing
- Social media marketing
- Customer service
- Online support
- Bookkeeping
- Data entry
Local businesses are offloading many of these tasks, and more, to help free up the owner’s time to work on more important aspects of their business.
