Take 1 or more of these steps to drive revenue in the coming year.
This post is about 5 ways you can improve your existing marketing initiatives to drive more SMB revenue in the coming year. Unlike most posts, it’s also a bit about us. We’re often asked how RSL Media, the publisher of speakSMB, creates programs that improve its clients’ results selling and marketing to SMBs. Following are some examples, built around 5 essential goals that companies targeting the SMB segment should embrace for 2019, whether you do it on your own, or turn to us.
- Really understand SMBs
Why: SMBs are different from large companies, and also from consumers. Whether you rely on outside agencies or have in-house creative resources focused on the SMB market, your marketing team will make better decisions if they look beyond traditional, data-driven, “persona”-based approaches to better understand the uniqueness of the SMB segment, the trends they are facing, and how they think.
How: Consider holding “SMB 101” workshops or moderated roundtables with SMB customers and prospects, where your marketing team will get precious insights that will make a strong impact on their work. RSL Media produces programs like these and others that will help your team dramatically improve results.
- Take your content from good to great
Why: Competition for the attention of business owners and other decision-makers has never been fiercer. Content today needs to be great, not just good. B2SMB marketers who fail to raise their content game to meaningfully assist SMBs with the challenges and opportunities they face will inevitably lose to their competitors that do.
How: Your content needs to teach them something or change their point-of-view (POV) about the challenges and opportunities they face. RSL Media has a time-tested methodology for creating POV-changing content that creates the connection between their business challenges and your product or service.
- Feature your customers
Why: The typical “best-practices” content doesn’t resonate with everyone. Customer-based content can help you broaden your audience and make your content, your company, and your product or service more relatable. Content that features your customers is like turning a triple play:
- Your audience wins because SMBs love to know what others are doing and how they’re using products or services.
- Your customers win because they’re getting recognition, and perhaps publicity and leads.
- You win because you’re creating content that goes beyond the usual “best practices,” and featured customers are likely to share this content with friends and associates.
How: Customer-based content that goes beyond testimonials can include case studies, customer stories, or advice from successful customers, which they can byline for added authenticity. You probably have dozens of customer stories within your company already. As with producing POV-changing content, RSL Media can produce the peer-to-peer content that SMBs crave.
- Build an audience
Why: The audience for your brand comes down to customers and prospective customers who follow you on a platform that, unlike social media, you control. By building your own audience, you are building trust, generating demand, and creating a communication channel that is second-to-none.
How: Building an audience requires a mindset, strategy, and tactics focused on building a loyal group of customers and potential customers who are favorably disposed toward your brand and want to hear from you. RSL Media can build a program for you that leverages existing assets, such as your content and e-mail newsletter, to create your own content platform that supercharges your SMB marketing results.
- Generate revenue
Why: It’s time to expect more of your content than just increased page views and clicks. As content budgets increase, it is only a matter of time until someone insists on a direct correlation between spending on content and revenue or profit.
How: Your content probably already helps convert the small percentage of your audience that’s ready to buy today. RSL Media can build a program to create demand for future purchases, nurture lost leads, help your salespeople overcome common objections, and otherwise generate incremental revenue.
Action Steps:
- Pick at least two of these goals to rev up your results from the small and midsize business market.
- Download your copy of our latest publication, The Definitive Guide to Accelerating the SMB Buyer’s Journey, here, to go deeper into any of the topics above.
- Set up a call to discuss how RSL Media can create content for your brand that SMBs will crave.
