Businesses - big or small - can benefit in a variety of ways from having an active blog on their website.
Well, we already know that small businesses had to rethink their digital marketing strategy due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. So, where does that leave us in the new year?
Let's discuss what the inbound marketing trends for 2021 will look like, and how your small business can add them to their arsenal to boost revenue and customer engagement.
Manage Your Reputation and the Conversation with Customers
One thing that’s not surprising is that social media is here to stay. When it comes to small business lead generation, it’s essential to dedicate funds and resources to social media. It’s your easiest, and most affordable, channel to engage your customers – and for them to interact with you.
Customer retention is especially important during these uncertain times, as it is much more cost-effective to retain a client than onboard a new one. We expect this trend to continue since the pandemic has significantly increased the amount of time everyone is spending online.
The shift to a virtual world has provided a new focus for small businesses to protect their reputation management, target new audiences and continue to build relationships with long-time customers. As we said, social media is cost-effective, and - if done right - your content plan and posts can drive new business while also keeping previous clients excited about your brand.
Get Found Online Easier for Terms That Matter to Your Business
The next inbound marketing trend on our list shouldn’t surprise you either - targeted SEO strategies. As a small business owner, one of the most important things you can do is ensure that your local listings are visible to the people who are looking for your products and services.
When someone is researching a product or making a purchase - that search begins with Google – sorry, Bing... It’s easy enough to ensure that your local business listing is up to date and includes your hours, contact information, and services, but what about your organic search strategy?
Organic or inbound search involves targeting the keywords and topics that matter to your customers. Take an audit of your current technical SEO, on-page SEO, meta titles, meta descriptions, keywords, etc. Plus, these terms can be geographically defined. Whenever your customers search for products near me, make sure that your brand is taking advantage of SEO algorithms to rank at the top of that search page. Are you laying a foundation to be an authority on your products and services?
Partners like St. Louis Marketing Department can perform this audit, develop a keyword strategy and then produce quality, optimized content on a consistent basis to get you where you need to be.
Give Customers Something to Engage With
Does your website feature any interactive content?
One of the downsides to everyone spending so much more time online is that your target audience is consistently inundated with advertisements on every platform. How many times have you scrolled right past an advertisement or ignored a banner without even reading it?
As you design your digital marketing strategy to tackle inbound marketing trends for 2021, interactive content should be near the top of your list. This type of content provides value to your visitors and allows them to engage with your brand.
Whether it be something simple like a mortgage calculator or a tool that lets them visualize your product in their home, interactive content helps you better target your marketing efforts and build a relationship with your customer base.
Preparing for the Year to Come
As you can see, there are quite a few small business inbound marketing trends for 2021. If you’d like to keep the focus on your business in 2021 while ensuring your marketing is primed to attract prospects and cultivate customers, partner with a digital marketing agency that can take on the strategy, implementation, and management of all your marketing campaigns.
Not only will outsourcing your marketing to specialists boost the success of your inbound strategy, but it will also help generate (and track) more ROI. When you partner with a firm like St. Louis Marketing Department, your small business campaigns are managed by director-level experts in digital marketing strategy – all for less than the cost of one full-time employee!
