March 2021 - Local Business Hacks

6 marketing hacks that create business value with networking & partnerships

You may benefit from your network more than you may think. Here are six more hacks you can use on your network to increase your marketing efforts.

Make your own voice heard

Can you connect with customers and prospects and show that you are personable and knowledgeable about your business? Promote your business on YouTube with promo spots. If you’re confident on camera, it’s easy to woo new clients. Getting out there and putting a face to your business is very important.

Become an authority in your industry

Why not take advantage of your knowledge of your business and industry, and use it to generate leads? Host an online workshop, or invite prospects to a webinar where you can tell them more about a product or service and invite them to sign up for more information. Publishing whitepapers is also one way to establish yourself as a thought leader.

Recruiting is a constant process

Small business owners often hire only when they have a vacant position to fill. However, this creates a double disadvantage: not only are you down a full-time employee but also have little control over the hiring timeline.

During sales calls, always inform your clients that you are looking for prospects. Always build a database of potential candidates, especially if there isn’t a position to fill. Doing so makes it easier to replace someone, especially if it’s on brief notice.

Ask your leads to join your exclusive group

Getting an invitation-only group started is a good idea. If you meet someone at an event who you think may be interested in your plans, ask to add them to your group. As a result, you have gained their trust. You have established yourself as an authority in the intersection of your knowledge and their interest (their business). No matter what you think, you have already established yourself as an influencer.

Develop a content marketing partnership

Businesses that work together to create content and share it on their platforms are great ways to grow their brands and market to their audiences, respectively. You can team up to create whitepapers, blogs, infographics, videos and podcasts.

Create loyalty programs that involve other brands

Some loyalty programs involve partner brands by providing rewards and discounts. A loyalty program offers consumers rewards if they take certain actions. For example, customers can gain access by taking advantage of a free trial offer, purchasing a product, or signing up for emails.

Some forms of loyalty partnership can be customers who can become brand advocates, who buy your products or services often, or who take part in partner brand discounts by looking at customer profiles and spending habits.

Conclusion

Taking advantage of your network isn’t just about connecting; it’s a powerful tool for attracting new leads and building loyalty. The six hacks above can help you bring your network to life for your company.

7 hacks to leverage video content and get clients

Video marketing is typically considered a powerful medium in the wellness and beauty industries, but people have to be engaged with content for it to be effective. This can be done easily with these 7 ways to use videos and get more clients.

1. Shorter videos attract more attention

Today, it’s harder than ever to keep people’s attention. So, be sure your videos are short and to the point. According to Facebook, 47% of the value is delivered in the first 3 seconds of a video. To see how it works out, take a quick 30-second video of you doing yoga in the morning and add the right hashtags to see how many views you get on Instagram or YouTube.

2.Respond to user comments as soon as you can

Show people you appreciate them by replying to their comments on your video. Make sure that you reply in a way that starts a conversation rather than ends it. As your audience won’t have the patience to wait around for hours, respond to them as soon as possible.

3.Keep a consistent content creation and posting schedule

You need to post new videos on social media to keep your audiences interested in your brand.

Keeping a regular and consistent posting schedule will make your fans eager to see your next video, so they will expect it each time.

4. Use social proof and user-generated content in your videos

Over 70% of customers bought a product or service after watching a YouTube video. Your videos should be educational and add value to customers with video testimonials from happy customers or product tutorials from wellness and fitness experts, and local influencers. These videos can also provide more information on fitness, wellness, and health classes available.

5. Add royalty-free music to evoke more emotion

It’s no secret music affects people’s emotions. An appropriate soundtrack can set the tone for any video and help make people feel emotionally connected to your video.

There are many free online music services and there is no reason that you cannot find a good track for your video. Decide if the music will be a major focus or supporting the dialogue. The music in your video can keep viewers interested and also help keep your brand at the forefront.

6. Use SEO to optimize your video

You should never ignore SEO basics. You should always conduct keyword research followed by testing. Put keywords into video titles, descriptions, tags, and the like; this can help you figure out what people are searching for. Use long-tail keywords in your video descriptions, and you will increase your chances of ranking higher.

7. Get your clients and patients to refer you to others to keep the referrals coming

As most health and wellness businesses depend on repeat customers, video can let your customers stay connected long after a purchase or a visit. Share short, educational videos about healthy eating and stress relief tips. Provide customers with a 24-hour referral code in Instagram Story videos. Highlight current clients by showing their before and after results when they worked out at your gym (with their permission, of course).

Give your video some time to grow and develop an audience. Don’t expect a sharp increase in engagement levels in the early days. Once you employ these seven strategies effectively, you will see significant results.

11 growth marketing hacks that make a difference for local businesses

Today’s wellness encompasses different aspects such as physical fitness, nutrition, and mental health. Small businesses face an enormous opportunity to innovate with growth marketing as more people invest in all aspects of their health and wellbeing. Here are 11 growth marketing hacks to get inspired by for your business.

1. Create a marketing calendar

Small business owners find that managing their companies and marketing can feel overwhelming. With a marketing calendar, you can make your day run smoothly.

First, look at your competitors’ websites and social media pages and see what they do so you can implement your own in your marketing calendar. You can create your calendar in Excel. Here’s what to include:

Highlight important holidays to promote specials
Decide when and where you’ll post on social media
Events you’ve got planned or events you’d love to plan
Days when you want to use live videos

Print or download your marketing plan and then put it somewhere handy where you can refer to it every day.

2. Ask your employees for help

If you find yourself overwhelmed by the demands of marketing and you have a small team, you can rely on your team’s skills and be able to further refine them by letting them produce videos, post on the company’s social media pages, and execute other marketing-focused projects. Since your employees know first-hand about your products or services, their knowledge can help your business become an emerging authority in your niche.

3. Understand your customers’ needs and concerns

What do you know about your customers? What data do you have to prove it? Learn about your customers’ feedback, objections, and pain points through online surveys, reviews, and customer service calls. Their responses may surprise you.

4. Take advantage of search engine optimization (SEO)

Google is working hard to differentiate between search and intent in their search algorithm. This is an essential aspect of SEO (search engine optimization) as we most often turn to search engines when looking for products and services.

For example, if your business is a cosmetic medical spa, you can add things like “cosmetic skincare clinic” or “cosmetic med spa” around your website and in relevant articles. Besides trying to target niche keywords, other SEO strategies also involve generating backlinks to your website by reaching out to related businesses or blogs and letting them try out a product or featuring a service on their website.

4.Make social media a part of your company

Sharing client testimonials and inspirational posts on social media can help small businesses gain online exposure and brand awareness. Brands that appear genuine can be a real conversation starter, so focus on people rather than just your service or product.

You could do this by championing a client’s fitness progress and giving them a shout-out or have a regular spot that showcases a team member and their wellness journey. Get people to talk about what they are thankful for the week or to share their favorite things for the upcoming week. Put yourself in the audience’s shoes and think of ways to make your business more personal to them.

5.Automate your email campaigns

Over 80% of marketers reported their email engagement has increased since 2019. Email marketing is the best way to get the highest ROI. If you’re using a service like MailChimp, you can segment your audience based on their open rates as your business grows.

You can even add a free product sample from your business when they sign up for your email list. Promote your business by creating an email marketing campaign with clear and concise copy featuring holiday specials and useful articles. You don’t want to leave readers confused, but inspire them and take action.

7. Design a landing page that converts

Every day, people search online for expert knowledge, practical solutions, and clear messages. When people search for a specific product or service, make sure you create an attractive landing page that clearly states the benefits for the customer, adding a customer testimonial and then finishing with a clear call-to-action. This will provide you a chance to grab their attention by providing valuable content.

8. Establish authority with ebooks and guides

Having a blog can make you look authoritative, but publishing an ebook or guide is gold. It will build your authority, and it’ll be a great lead magnet. You can offer readers the chance to receive an ebook or other resources when they sign up with their email addresses.

9. Create a referral program

Having friends and family recommend you to your customers and giving you a name also stands out as very effective. Referral programs generate buzz and can provide incentives.

You don’t need huge rewards; a simple 10% discount or $10 account credit can do the trick. Even the smallest reward programs can really benefit from a third-party referral platform. If you really want to amaze your customers and gain more referrals, you can email video responses to customers who provided feedback or personally email your first 1,000 customers.

10. Partner with another local business or influencer

You could partner with another local business, not in direct competition with yours. You could work with a local organic grocery store to host nutrition talks for your members. You could work together with the store to run a contest on each other’s channels, picking one lucky winner. The prize could be a month’s long pass to classes at your gym and a gift basket of goods from the store.

An influencer is similar to partnering up with a local business. Knowing who they are can be very helpful. Focus on finding influencers who share your brand values and are able to engage consumers well – not just counting and buying followers.

11. Increase your customer base by offering contests

Organizing a contest can be a great way for your business to achieve many goals without incurring a significant expense. “Contests” are a great way to promote your business on social media. There are several ways to conduct a contest. You can run a contest where it’s enter-to-win with a purchase or users can tag a few friends as an entry on your Instagram page.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with these growth hacks

With all these growth marketing hacks, you might wonder which one to choose for your business. Choose one and see how it works for your customers and your business numbers. You don’t have to be afraid to fail if you’re willing to try out new things. With a little creativity and some smart thinking, you can do it without spending thousands on marketing.

Get inspiration from these ideas and let us know which ones worked for you.

5 Hacks how to NOT overlook your ROI?

Results are the key to success for any business, so today’s beauty and wellness brands are creating deeper bonds with consumers with an aggressive content strategy that relies on attractive visual content, user-generated content, and working with influencers.

It’s about time you take advantage of those benefits as well. Many local businesses in the beauty and wellness industries have seen results from these growth hacks and now is a perfect time to use these tips to boost your ROI.

Create an effective content marketing strategy

A content marketing strategy can help you succeed in business. If your marketing budget is modest, then create a marketing campaign tailored to your target audience.

With the right amount of effort, you can attract customers regardless of the size of your business and the number of resources at your disposal.

Make sure every campaign you plan includes shareable content. One of the main pillars of content marketing campaigns is video content. Videos can easily bring in customers to landing pages because they can evoke emotion, offer value, and hook them.

Sell Through Your Customers

Your brand has a network of loyal fans. It’s time to use them.

Make it easy for your customers to spread the word about the brand. Inspire them to post about the brand, analyze the results of their postings and use incentives to generate more content. Thanks to social media, thousands of users see what your customers are doing, making them more likely to buy.

Let Your Employees Be Brand Advocates

For local businesses that have physical locations and employees, ask one of your employees to serve as a brand ambassador by posting about the business on their social media accounts and reward them with recognition and incentives. Even a quick social media post can be a huge draw to customers.

Your team is curating an experience that elevates your brand and helps your customers discover it. Content needs to be around the brand to enhance how it is unique compared to other brands.

Get value out of excess product in your inventory

Because consumer demand changes so frequently, it is likely you are sitting on excess products in your inventory. Instead of letting these outdated products sit in the backroom, use them to activate customers and employees.

Social contests are a great way to give away excess inventory while getting your customer-base to take part and refer business to you via user-generated content and referrals. You can also reward top employees for outstanding performances and achievement awards as well.

Earn money from influencers

Local beauty and wellness brands with an online presence can gain traffic by featuring other brands and influencers in a round-up post. These brands don’t need to be direct competition; they just need to be secondary and ancillary to yours.

Those influencers you mentioned can then use your affiliate link on their own site (or to promote a particular product), directing their followers toward your online store.

With this approach, you and the influencers can both benefit from it because everyone earns from each purchase their customers make on our website using our affiliate link or code.

See Your Beauty and Wellness ROI Grow

Having a great beauty and wellness brand is not enough. Experiment and test new marketing technologies as much as possible. Identify what’s working for you and eliminate the rest.

These tips can help you boost your ROI quickly. Just sift through the data from your campaigns and make the changes needed to improve your business’s ROI numbers.