The Best Marketing Plan for an SME in 9 Steps

 

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Looking for the best marketing plan for an SME? It is worth saying that if you are not on the internet you are not into anything. And it is that almost 3 out of 4 users who did a local search, accessed a nearby business, at least half, during the same day

Compelling reasons to position your business on the internet? It does not matter if you are starting your business online for the first time or you are digitizing your physical business.

In this article, you will learn about the strategies that make up a marketing plan for an SME. Of course, it is important that you evaluate with a professional which of these strategies best suits your business:

9 steps to create a marketing plan for an SME

When you make the decision to start a small business you have doubts. What will be the best strategy? How can I get my investment back quickly? How to grow my business?

And endless questions more. As we know that these are some of the most frequent doubts in our clients, we want to mention the steps that cannot be missing in a marketing plan for SMEs:

1. Study your market niche

When you start out as a small business you have many insecurities. Many doubts about it and even the infallible great mistake is made of believing that your product or service is going to interest everyone.

The answer is clearly no. Not all users have the same needs, the same tastes and preferences, and your product or service will not meet everyone’s needs.

So focus on the main thing, on the protagonist of your business:

• Study your target audience as a Psychologist, an analyst, or a Community manager. How it behaves on the web, on social networks and what need it is seeking to cover.
• Develop a value proposition. Among so much competition and with the potential increase of 24% of electronic commerce in the US ( Ecommerce profitable ). What can your product or service offer that others cannot?

2. Develop a branding strategy

Developing a branding strategy is an essential part of a marketing plan for an SME. It is like the cherry that the cake was missing. When you are a growing company you need to promote yourself. But it is not enough just to promote yourself, you have to catch your target audience.

What personality does your brand have? What emotions will your users connect with? What rituals can your customers develop when buying your product or service?

You must develop a coherent and flexible graphic identity in times of crisis.

For example, the millennial community is to follow a lot of value brands. So if you distribute a visual identity consistently across the different channels, you will better engage your audience.

3. Decide assertively the first strategies to be used

Once the target audience has been identified and all the interaction that will surround it comes the part where small entrepreneurs tend to get confused. Besides this the million-dollar question:

What will my first strategy be?

It is difficult to start a marketing plan and put all the strategies on the table without having extensive knowledge in the area. It is like sending fuzzy signals everywhere hoping to obtain an objective and tangible result.

The truth is that it does not work like that, it is not enough to have visibility on the internet. For this reason, we advise you that the best plan that you can put together for your small business and that it can be promoted is to consult with expert specialists in the area.

So, well, it doesn’t matter that your investment is small. It will be invested in resources that will bring you positive results:

• Whether the increase in traffic
• Increased reach and visibility.
• Convert users into sales.

4. Create a website for your SME

Some small SMEs decide primarily to sell their services through social networks and that is good to start, but there is nothing more profitable in the long term than having your own website to offer your products and services in the long term.

As a small SME, it goes hand in hand with electronic commerce. If it is a store, it is best to create it through Wocommerce. This way, you can have the most functional payment platforms integrated for your customers.

Don’t forget to design landing pages to offer your product or service in detail. These landing pages are super functional to bring traffic from social networks or from the king of Google positioning itself.

5. Design a template adapted to your niche

If you were left with the idea that with having a website you are already done, this is another of the blunders that you can make for your business. Each niche is handled differently and has different attractions.

If you have developed a solid branding strategy, it is time to implement it on your website, and what better way than designing a custom template for your business.

There are many benefits of creating a custom template. But I mention some below:

• It will be intuitive. By having a personalized design you will enhance the intuitive process of buying your potential client step by step and will end by adding items to your shopping cart.
• You will have clear and consistent calls to action. In relation to text, images and videos.
• Optimized for mobile devices and tablets. So your target audience can find your business from whatever element they use for this search.

6. Inbound marketing for SMEs

Writing content is one of the most potential ways to connect with that user who can possibly become your potential client. Through persuasive writing, you spend time with your user to explain the wonders of your product or service.

Even in most cases, it serves to open the eyes of people who did not know that they required service or how much they needed it. In addition to this, having a blog section on your website allows you to carry out two extremely important actions that are added to a marketing plan for an SME:

• Capturing leads or subscribers: Through these contents and if they have been of interest, your client will be able to leave their email address and you will be able to outline these clients as potentials. Also, once they are your customers, you can also group them by purchase frequency.
• Use email marketing: By sending personalized emails to your different types of customers and measuring their frequency, you will increase the loyalty of your engaged customers.

7. SEO for your SME

Those who do not have solid knowledge in marketing tend to shy away from web positioning as the sum of the parts in their business. Because SEO works but over time. But it is essential because the results are extremely effective. In addition to this, I mention why to use SEO in your SME.

• Local appearance: Imagine that you do not have an appearance in your region. A user does a search and your business does not appear. Profit or loss? Make your own conclusions. Being registered in Google My Business is essential to have an appearance in your region.
• Correct use of keywords: Writing content without following Google’s skeleton is a waste of time, patience, and perseverance. For your business, to position itself on the internet, you must do an analysis of free and paid keywords. In the beginning, it is fine to use free words but if you want to be one step ahead of the competition, it is best to use SEMrush and obtain words that position your website from the rest. Creating content and developing categories with these words also works very well if you are starting an SME.
• Global appearance: If you start increasing the visibility of your region, using keywords in relation to your SME, they will increase the chances that your business will appear in the first three positions of Google.

Yes, SEO is a step-by-step job that generates solid long-term results and therefore it is another of the essential steps that make up a marketing plan for an SME. If you want long-term results in your business and that does not die before starting, start positioning your website.

8. SEM advertising or paid advertising

When starting a small business, what overwhelms the founder the most is that he dies before he is born. Paid advertising is a strategy that can be used in the first instance while SEO web positioning does its thing.

For this reason, it is important to use both strategies in parallel and not separately. To meet short-term objectives, a well-planned SEM strategy can bring high benefits to your SME.

Paid advertising allows you to appear in the first three positions of Google. But… Is it enough just to appear and already in the top positions? The answer is no.

So for this SEM advertising strategy to be well thought out, it must have planned:

1. Target your target audience.
2. Block negative words: Like “free” “free” among others.
3. The economic status is also important to define in an SEM strategy, especially if you want to start developing a luxury brand.
4. Described persuasively and in the communicational tone that your audience already manages. (This is why it is important to create a blog section in your SME).

9. Social media and your first steps with your audience

What audience are you going to target? Baby boomers? Millennials? Generation Z? The truth is that the odds are very high in selling through social networks. I mention some strategies in your marketing plan for SMEs with social media:

1. Facebook Ads

Facebook has become a platform for doing business. The truth is that now you have to pay to have the reach and visibility you need because by magic you will not appear in your target audience. The Facebook CEO took it upon himself to limit organic growth and decided to give this platform a spin.

By having a profile on Facebook you must immediately proceed to create your Fanpage. This will be like the protagonist of your business on Facebook and in addition to this, you will be able to create your SEM advertising strategy or campaign through Facebook Ads.

These three moves will give a positive outlook to your business landscape.

2. Instagram: Reels are today’s positioning

Although organic growth is getting more and more annoying on Instagram, a fast ranking alternative has been created and these are the reels. Through these short videos, you can promote your product or service and why they should buy it.

If you use enough hashtags and the video is attractive enough it will rank quickly.

There are also other strategies that you cannot stop using:

• Instagram stories: Within 24 hours you have the potential to appear in the stories of your target audience and persuade them to access your profile. This option is quite convincing since it passes as “natural” among the stories of this user who is not your follower but has shown interest in your service.
• Promote posts: These are also ideal for you to reach your target audience. You should create a post that is engaging enough to pique your audience’s interest and end up on your profile.
• Create lives: We mention this option as the last one because if you have not created an audience or a larger number of followers, who will be able to watch your live? Once you have a stronger audience, it doesn’t hurt to prepare topics that you can publicly discuss about your product or service.

3. Twitter and its strong community

If you manage to communicate in the communicational tone that users have on Twitter, manage trends and are up to date with memes, your business can develop quite well on this platform. Once you develop a strong community you can promote tweets with images or hyperlinks. This way you can bring qualified traffic to your landing pages.

4. Tik Tok and its viral videos

The strong competition between Tik Tok and Instagram is noticeable. The fast positioning of these short videos makes it a worthy social network to use.

If you create videos where your face appears explicitly and how you explain your product or service, you will have the receptivity of your audience. Keep in mind some golden laws to succeed in Tik Tok:

1. Take the trending videos and create content based on them.
2. Avoid direct mail or your video will be discarded before being watched.
3. Show your face without glasses or something to disperse the look.
4. Make videos that have text and movement at the same time.

Some final considerations for your business or SME

Since we are reaching the end of this article, I have mentioned all the steps you need to develop a marketing plan for a successful SME. We give you some final considerations to transform your business:

• If you can after starting, hire a specialized team: Having a community manager, a copywriter among others will help you to function better in digital media. And if you connect with your audience, the chances of creating new customers will be more.

• Experiment with influencer marketing: If you can create collaborations with users on social networks with a solid community adapted to your product or service, do not hesitate for a second. The results are guaranteed.
• Don’t be afraid to experiment: Marketing is strategies used through trial and error. If you feel the need to appear on a new channel, this is the time. That yes be objective with your plan, experiment, and measure the metrics.