Having a strong marketing strategy is a key component to a successful business. SMEs are the backbone of the nation, providing local jobs and working hard to improve the country’s economy. Here you will find some useful resources that will help market your business online.
Get an insight into your competitors:
Wouldn’t it be great if you could find out how well your competitors are doing online? The answer is you can, well at least for some useful online metrics. Check out SimilarWeb a software package that allows you to analyse the performance of any website. Simply type in the URL of a competitor and you can see metrics such as monthly visits, traffic sources, geographical search locations, search traffic, social and much more. The best thing is its free for the basic package, you can upgrade to the pro version for more in-depth features and analysis.
See what content performs best in your niche:
Quality content is a fundamental asset for any online business, but coming up with fresh ideas that will appel to your audience can be tricky. One great online resource that will help you identify top performing content is Buzzsumo. You can type in a keyword to search for a topic or input your own URLs to see which content you have produced got the most social engagement. Also remember you could always do this for your competitors content, if they have a topic that is working well why don’t create some content around that subject area as well.
Find influences in your niche:
Topsy is a great tool for not only tracking your brand on Twitter but also a great way to find influential people within your industry. Building strong relationships with authoritative figures within your industry is a great way of helping to promote your company. Start by interacting with them on the social platforms and then maybe invite them to do an interview for your site, providing there expert opinion.
Something for the wall:
We came across a visualisation of SME marketing tips which can be seen here. You usually find a lot of SME advice articles online, but having one that you can print out and put on the wall could be handy. It’s important to try and keep up to date with the industry, so read some marketing blogs on a weekly basis or sign up to an RSS feed for your email address.
Get Creative:
If you have the need to edit the odd image or maybe knock up a bit of creative for your site, but you don’t want to splash out on a fancy editing software, Pixlr is the perfect option. It allows you to edit images online for free and any other creative task that you may want to tackle. You don’t have to be an expert to use it as it’s reasonably user friendly.
So there you have it some free online resources that could be a great aid for your marketing strategy. Try a few of them out and share any other resources you may have found.
