5 business resolutions for your local venture in 2019
Happy New Year — 2019 is underway! It’s the time for consumers and businesses alike to start making New Year’s resolutions. If you haven’t had the chance to pin down any business resolutions yet, here’s an idea: Give your social media an upgrade to drive more results this year.
Resolve to get new customers and keep existing customers coming back through social media — with help from Tech News Social. We can help you elevate your social media marketing strategy and save you valuable time.
Related: 5 ways to upgrade your business’s Instagram strategy
5 local business resolutions
Get motivated to crush your content marketing strategy with our top five resolutions for small, local businesses this year:
Refresh your social media.
Renovate your website.
Reconnect with loyal customers through email marketing.
Remember your neighbors.
Save time with a content calendar.
Are you ready to learn more about how to tackle these five winning business resolutions for 2019? Read on.
1. Refresh your social media
Your potential customers are using social media in their everyday lives. They connect with friends and family, share their experiences, and shop and browse for engaging brands and businesses online. In fact, 77 percent of consumers in the U.S. have a social media profile, and nearly 3 billion people will be using social media by 2020. This means that social media will have more influence in purchasing decisions in 2019 than ever before!
The new year is a perfect time to refresh your pages to attract new customers.
Start the new year by spiffing up your social media accounts, including:
- Uploading new and improved profile and cover photos.
- Writing a catchy new description of your business.
- Refresh your photos on your review sites.
- Taking the time to make sure all of your information (such as business hours, location and phone number) is accurate.
- Brainstorming some post ideas for the months ahead that will garner organic engagement.
- Setting aside a budget for some paid social media to use throughout January.
Think about what you can post that will prompt your followers to pay your business a visit in early 2019 and all year long!
Related: A beginner’s guide to social media for small business
2. Renovate your website
Think of your website as your virtual storefront. At your business, you probably change your featured products as your inventory changes. You might feature new menu items or update your window signage with each new season. In the same way, you’ll want to update your website so it stays fresh and draws in both new and loyal customers.
Your customers will be excited to see your enhancements and will spend a little extra time clicking around your website and checking out your new products and services for the new year.
Note: You’ll also want to make sure that your website is mobile friendly. You don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to wow your customers with everything your business has to offer. Make sure you have a responsive website that allows your customers to view your products, book your services, or easily get in contact with you.
3. Reconnect with loyal customers through email marketing
If you’re not taking advantage of email marketing for your business, this year is the time to start! Make it a goal to start collecting email addresses this year (by adding a widget to your website, posting prompts on social media, or setting up a clipboard next to your cash register) so you can keep in touch with your new and loyal customers in a personalized way.
Email marketing campaigns are measurable, cost-effective and targeted.
Email marketing is a great way to reach the people who already love your business and who have opted in to receive communication from you. Increase brand awareness this year by staying at the top of your customers’ minds (and inboxes).
Related: Beginner’s guide to starting an email list
4. Remember your neighbors
Keep in mind that other small businesses in your community can be huge resources for you — and vice versa. Whether you choose to connect with an owner across the street or across town, there are tons of ways to boost your business by collaborating with other small businesses.
Participating in a local event, (like a street fair, sip-n-shop or joint discount program) not only helps you drive interest from your partner business’s customer base but also allows you to amplify your efforts by adding together budgets, offers and promotional efforts around one common event. Even swapping business cards with a neighboring establishment to display at your register is a great way to maximize on a partner business’s customer base.
Here’s a great example we’ve seen recently: A local movie theater has a sign near the exit offering a free milkshake at a restaurant across the street — as long as you show your movie ticket stub. Now, that’s neighbors helping neighbors!
By connecting with other local businesses in your neighborhood, you can build brand awareness, gain new customers, and make a difference in your community.
Related: How to market a local business through strategic collaboration
5. Save time with a content calendar
While it’s important to create goals and set business resolutions in the new year, it’s equally important to make personal goals. Take a step back and consider how you can create more breathing room for yourself this year when it comes to planning your online marketing strategies. Even making one process or procedure more efficient can help save time.
Are you posting on social media on the fly? That can be stressful — as you can feel like you can never catch up with the number of posts you need to create. Set up a content calendar.
Take a look at the month ahead, plan your upcoming posts on each platform and, if possible, start scheduling out the content.
Printing out a paper calendar can help you visualize how your content plan will look. You can then schedule your content using programs like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, Facebook’s scheduling function or Instagram’s drafts function so you can post at your convenience. You’ll be amazed how much an extra 30 minutes a day can reinvigorate you and help get you ahead this year!
Related: How to create a social media content calendar