1. Content strategy
When we’re talking about content, you’ve got to remember that Google is constantly changing their algorithm. They’re changing everything about it. How it shows up in the search engine results page, what pages are ranking, why they’re ranking and who sees them. So if you’ve been using an old, outdated content strategy, you’ve been doing the same thing for years, now is the time to change, in particular when it comes to dropshipping products.
2. Start a podcast
You may be thinking: Everybody’s got a podcast, why would I do that? Well, it’s pretty easy to start the podcast, but what you really want to do is provide great content number one and number two, don’t be boring. There’s a lot of boring podcasts out there and they never see the success that they could but for a small business, it can be incredibly valuable because one, you get to show off what an expert you are in the topic that you’re talking about. Regardless of what your business or industry is, it’s great to be able to talk and show that you’re the expert, you know better. This is all about educating your consumer and an educated consumer is a better customer. Two, this gives you a great opportunity to showcase your brand, who you are, the person behind the brand, the person behind the company.
3. Email
Next, let’s talk about email. Email is incredibly effective for small businesses especially that want to be able to reach their consumer. So change up your email strategy. Change up what it looks like. Change up your content. Change up when you’re sending it. Do some testing. Find out what days work best for you. People have said for years Tuesdays and Wednesdays are great days to send emails. Maybe for you it’s Thursday or Friday. Maybe you want to send a weekend email. Test them out. See what’s going to work best for you, what works best for your customers and importantly, one thing you really need to consider is make sure your emails show up really well on mobile. More and more people are using their mobile device for every aspect of their life including email. So as long as the email that you’re creating is mobile responsive and so is the website you’re sending them to, that’s where you see your best efficiency and that’s how you have a great 2020.
4. Social media
Next, let’s talk about your social media. Specifically, let’s talk about running some social media ads. Now, it’s been common knowledge for a long time that the organic reach of a Facebook page is pretty limited, pretty low. In fact, for a lot of pages, it can be as low as 1% meaning that you’re only reaching about 1% of your audience when you’re just posting organically. A lot of people are also trying to rely on boosting and boosting their posts and I have say, that’s a terrible idea. Boosting if you start thinking back to the old days of newspaper and magazines and things like that, if you were running any ads there, you probably got a discount doing something what’s called a remnant ad or a remnant placement meaning that you weren’t really in the greatest spot. It was just leftover space that they had. That’s where your ad went. You were in the newspaper or the magazine but it wasn’t great placement. At least you were there. That’s what boosting is. Boosting will get you there but not great placement. It doesn’t utilize any of the machine learning or algorithms that Facebook has at its power. It doesn’t really give you a great way to reach your audience.
5. Run ads
Running actual ads as in using Facebook’s business manager, that’s how you really get to take advantage of all the power and strength that comes from the machine learning and the algorithms that are built into that. You’re no longer getting this remnant placing but you’re actually getting preferred placing.
6. Make your journey personal
This is incredibly important for small businesses because people want to feel connected. They want to feel like you’re a part of the community and you need to be a part of that. A great way to actually encourage people to work with your business or to choose you for services or products or whatever you offer is to show them that you are an actual real person and you employ real people in the community. Share your hopes, your dreams, the struggles of owning a small business, things that you’re going through (even top shopify stores, for inspiration). By adding this personal touch, you really give your customers an opportunity to, they can connect with you and they can connect with you on an emotional side. So carry this through and start to tell the personal story of your business. Start to tell the personal story of how you got started, why you do what you do, what you did when you took a couple of days off, the things that your kids are doing, the things that your employees are doing, their successes, new things that they’re trying, maybe an employee is moving on, going to college, starting their own business. Share that with your customers and share that with your community. By taking your customers on this personal journey, they’re going to want to continue to be a patron of your business and to continue to work with you. Telling your story is an incredible way to grow your business but also to be a part of the community. So be a part of the community.