Igniting Business Blog

Using aerial drone video is no longer a new idea in digital marketing. Today, more businesses are discovering the value of drone video as a marketing tool. Here are 3 ways you can use aerial video footage as part of your marketing arsenal.

Keeping track of who was present during business hours for various reasons can be a good practice, especially when it comes to following up with these visitors. For retail businesses, this could be a way to reach out to them with special promotions or coupons. For meetings or office check-ins, collect customer contact information with sign in sheets, website forms, business cards, etc. There are many useful and creative ways for a small business to use customer contact information to better market to their customers.

What is one of the best ways to visually promote and brand your company on Facebook? If your answer is "video", you're spot on. But do you use video to maximum effect for your page? Unless you're also using video as your Facebook page's cover image, you're missing out on a powerful tool to catch page visitors' eyes.

Getting started in social media can be daunting. While the number of social media platforms available can seem intimidating, starting with one social networking site that works best for your small business will help you manage, maintain, and eventually grow your online presence. Here's how:

The Group feature is not new to the Facebook platform, but it promises to be more relevant since Mark Zuckerberg's announcement in early 2018 that they're changing what content appears on users' News Feeds. This change includes showcasing fewer organic posts from business Pages and more from Groups and friends. So, while having a business Page on Facebook is still important, it's may also wise to incorporate activity with a Facebook Group as part of your social strategy.

Businesses and consumers will soon see the effects of recent advancements in exciting technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), 5G telecommunications, voice searches, and virtual reality (VR). In fact, some of these are being used right now! In the not-so-distant future, it will seem bizarre that people used to interact with the World Wide Web only using their fingertips. Afterall, who thought smartphones and mobile devices would be as ubiquitous and as widely used as they are today? As technologies such as VR and AI continue to grow exponentially, both businesses and consumers will be presented with a whole new level of interaction with technology, that which is rich in visual stimulation and intuitive, intellectual responsiveness. Any small business paying attention to and investing in these newer technologies, stands poised to move far ahead of their competition.

Online marketing is popular and is where many eyes are focused. Online marketing can be interacted with easily on computers, phones, and other devices via commenting, spreading through social media, upvoting on online platforms, or other means. Some online campaigns even encourage more direct interaction, such as voting, inviting user-generated content, or deliberately starting a conversation.

In the growing age of the Internet and always being present online, it seems like everyone is talking about the advances in inbound and content marketing, drawing people in towards your business. Inbound marketing certainly helps businesses garner success, but strategic outbound marketing never really stopped being viable. Outbound marketing is what people think of as "traditional marketing" of going out to seek attention from your customers. These include email newsletters, trade show features, online banner ads, press releases, direct mail, and more never really stopped being viable. In fact, thanks to the advances made in technology, outbound marketing is better than it's ever been before.

The digital landscape is in a constant state of evolution, just like your brand. Understanding customer needs and finding ways to meet those needs is a good first step in reaching your target market, but nowadays, a small business must do more to stay relevant. Your website and social media pages can be powerful platforms for acquiring and keeping customers, but you'll need to make sure that you're attracting the right visitors. Consider investing in online advertising to even better reach, target, and corner your market's audience if you're seeing any of these struggles when running your business.

For small businesses and bootstrap entrepreneurs, marketing effectively on a budget can be a difficult task. Instead of trying to mimic large companies who have even larger budgets and a whole staff of people dedicated to maximizing ROI, small companies should develop a distinctive marketing plan that strategically sets them apart from their competition and promote their business in an effective way. Here are the three concepts small businesses must hone when developing marketing strategies that really work.