6 Major Marketing Trends Small Businesses Shouldn’t Ignore Right Now
While the pandemic has been nothing short of devastating for small businesses, it has also given them an opportunity to rethink their business strategies. To help out independent business owners, here are six marketing trends that are already beginning to shape the future.
1. Social commerce
Social media won’t be just for discovering or following brands. It will be an integrated experience that will also enable the purchase of a product or service: Social commerce.
This means small businesses should rebuild their social media channels to enable customer journeys that compel them to buy. Therefore, increasing or maintaining your presence and polishing your brand on these platforms will become crucial for every business. Consumer Choice Award (CCA) winners have the great advantage of counting on a digital team that can run and manage campaigns on all of the most popular platforms.
2. Video continues to rise
Customers are increasingly preferring video over other forms of content and are more likely to pay attention to it. A majority of marketing professionals favour this type of content because of its ROI1.
Introduce or build a brand, showcase services or position a company as an industry leader; video serves a lot of purposes. With the rise of social media this is becoming an inescapable format. This is true for both B2B and B2C sectors.
From websites to social media channels, small businesses will have to invest in video production. With that in mind CCA has developed video services over the past few years. Now offering several formats that will fit every need. The video team works with winners to customize stunning and dynamic videos based on information provided in an easy-to-use questionnaire. No video expertise or experience needed on the winner’s end – the CCA video team has them covered!
3. More influencers
Consumer-to-consumer communication is known to be one of the main factors behind a purchasing decision. No surprise then that influencers will continue to be crucial to marketing – as they are all about building the trust with potential new consumers.
Smaller sized businesses don’t have to worry about the prohibitive costs of national or international influencers. With the right Facebook or LinkedIn marketing strategy, they should be able to find regional or local influencers. Perform local hashtags research, look into your own followers on social media and use your network to get connected.
4. Virtual is here to stay
From conferences to concerts, virtual will be a part of both business and consumer experiences. This gives small businesses an opportunity to host time-bound virtual sales events or live Q&As with their customers. It could also open the doors to a wider audience that would not be within reach in the brick-and-mortar world. Creating a big online presence should definitely be a top priority. From website to online advertising, every company should have an “online strategy”. If you don’t know where to start, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Many experts in the industry, like CCA, can help you build this online presence.
5. Reviews will be crucial
Online review management will be a significant task for business owners now. Customers are increasingly turning to Google, Facebook, and Yelp to know more about businesses.
Small businesses will have to monitor these conversations to enhance and maintain their brand equity.
Brand equity is what makes a great company and a Consumer Choice Award winner. The Consumer Choice Award helps you build trust with future customers knowing that you have been chosen as the best at what you do.
6. Stand for something
Independent businesses will have to move beyond customer satisfaction and superior products and services. They can’t stand on the sidelines as customers voice their opinion on everything from global warming to sustainability to inclusivity. Small and medium businesses will have to prove that they are in alignment with some of the larger societal concerns. Small Businesses are intimately linked to the community they live in. So, they should get involved! It doesn’t need to involve a lot of financial investment. There are many creative ways a company can give back.
Showing that they care and that they are not just here for the profits is key in creating a company’s core values.
Being invested and delivering superior service will make the company stand out. Down the road this business excellence will be recognized by consumers.
This is the right moment for small business owners to optimize their operations in sync with the new realities. The world is obviously shifting online and appearing trustworthy is paramount. Consumer Choice Award helps small and medium size businesses in building this trust, since 1987. Being recognized and promoted as the best business in a specific category was already a great asset back then, and continues to be valuable to small businesses in this new digital marketplace.
1 https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/03/08/video-marketing-statistics
