Our favorite business marketing tips in 2024

If you’re running a business, whether a brick-and-mortar location or an online company, you know spreading the word about your brand is the way to attract consumers.

In the modern-day business world, it’s critical to establish a solid digital marketing plan to drive customers through your door. 

But with a flood of marketing gurus sharing advice about how to market your business if you want to land sales, how are you supposed to know what’s worth putting time in and what you can skip?

There is no clearly defined road to marketing success, but one thing we know for sure is that your strategies will only work if you put them in front of the right people.

Today, we’re sharing the foundational steps you need to take for optimal marketing results.  

Research your audience. 

Before you begin your marketing journey, it’s critical to understand your audience and know who you’re marketing to. When you have a clearly defined audience, you can strategically craft your messaging so it speaks to the right people. 

The first step in identifying how to market your brand successfully is to develop your Ideal Client Avatar (ICA). This is a granular description of your dream client and includes several components, such as: 

• Demographic information such as gender, age, location, income level, occupation, and industry.
• Psychographic information such as values, beliefs, interests, and lifestyle traits.
• Needs, challenges, and pain points so you can address their specific problems and meet them with a solution.

Do some aggressive market research to learn about your targeted audience so you can nail down your ICA. Dig to the depths to understand their roadblocks, struggles, and ideal solutions. 

Identify where your target audience spends their time.

With so many online platforms in 2024, you need to establish a presence where your target audience spends most of their time. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X (formerly known as Twitter), and TikTok all give businesses the opportunity to promote themselves.

However . . .

While creating content and running paid ads across all of those platforms will improve your visibility, it won’t yield results if your ICA shows up there. So, before you begin marketing your brand on social media platforms, determine where your audience is hanging out. Are they most commonly on Facebook? Instagram? LinkedIn? 

Knowing where your audience is hanging out can help you understand where you need to put your effort behind and create a consistent schedule to show up. 

Funnel your audience to your email list.

Email marketing is a wonderfully productive way to market your business for several reasons. By utilizing email, you give yourself an intimate way to connect with your audience beyond the confines of social media. 

When subscribers agree to join your email list, they’re waving a green flag that says they don’t want to miss out on your marketing efforts. It’s common knowledge that promotions and communications will be delivered straight to their inbox, so they don’t have to worry if they are going to miss out on updates from you due to hiccups in the algorithm.

A common way to encourage people to subscribe to your list is to offer them an exclusive resource in exchange for their email address. 

Here are a few opt-in ideas you can offer your audience to grow your list: 

• Free guides or e-books that highlight your expertise 
• New customer discount codes
• Exclusive access to a sale or service
• Host a virtual workshop that requires registration to join

Getting more leads on your list will prime your audience for upcoming sales and launches and increase your conversion rates in the long run.

No matter how you decide to market your business, keep in mind that the right people will find you when your strategy is designed to meet their needs. When you put in the elbow grease up front to figure out who those people are, your marketing strategy will work for you!