Are you a small business owner? Or maybe you haven’t quite started your business yet, but you have big plans. Either way, this information is for you. When it comes to your future success, there’s no time like now to get started working toward your goals. There are lots of business trends that you should be following and implementing into your own workplace, to ensure future success.
Hopefully you’re already working on some of these, but if not, here’s what you need to know:
Branding
We’ve talked about branding before, because it’s one of those things that is absolutely crucial to your business’ success. If people don’t recognize you, or remember your name, they won’t remember to use your business again. When you’re branding your business online, be sure you’re using the same logo, contact information and voice so people can recognize that you’re the company they’ve used and loved. Branding isn’t exclusive to online, though. You can help with your company’s branding every time you interact with a customer. Be that friendly, personable business that people love to work with! Let your customers know that your branding includes quality work and friendly faces.
Social Presence
Your social presence is a big deal in today’s world. If you’re not on social media, you’re missing out on a huge chunk of potential business. Your customers are on social media, and so are your potential customers. People are constantly looking to social media for advice from friends about which business to use. They also go to social media to search for businesses to find contact information, photos of their work, current specials, and more. Your social media presence should include listings on at least Google, Yelp, and Facebook. If you are able to keep up an Instagram account, that is another great place for a business to keep in contact with their customers. You should be active on social media, and try to post engaging content that will make your customers interact with you. Photos go a long way in making people want to follow your social media profiles!
Small Business Attitude
People are feeling really optimistic about small businesses, and love to help out a local company. When you are working with your employees and your customers, you should try to envelop that small business attitude that everyone has grown to love. What is the small business attitude, exactly? It’s the friendly, personal touch that a hometown business can offer, that the big guys really can’t. According to entrepreneur.com, small businesses have the best chance of success right now, higher than they’ve had in ten years. This is likely largely because of the increase of love and appreciation for small business. Over 90% of consumers agree that buying from a small business is important. Be sure you’re using that to your advantage!
Workplace Positivity
Your employees look to you, their boss, to see how what their workplace attitudes should be. Whether this is in how they dress, how they talk or even how they feel about coming to work. If you are always feeling negative and grouchy, that will be your workplace attitude. As the owner of the company, one of your jobs is to manage and maintain your employees. It’s important that you keep yo workplace positivity and make people want to work with you. When people feel that their work is appreciated, they are much more likely to work hard and do their best. Workplace positivity will help you in the future to know who you want to hire, and what type of employee isn’t the best fit for your business. You want employees who are friendly, knowledgeable, trainable and positive!
Customer Engagement
Customer engagement is your key to future success. Keeping your customers coming back time and time again is what keeps your business alive. Customers are much more likely to frequent a business that they feel they have a relationship with. The way to build this positive relationship with your customers is through interaction. Customer engagement can be through text messages, emails, or social posts (or even better, all of the above)! If you don’t already have customer engagement goals set up for your business, now is a great time to get those in place and start working toward effective engagement.
For more insights on marketing strategy that actually works for small business, subscribe to the FreshLime Newsletter here. Connect with Jay Bean, Founder of FreshLime and Small Business Marketing Expert on LinkedIn and Twitter. And last of all, if any of these tips have helped you or if you have anything to add please comment below. We’d love to hear from you!