April 12, 2022
How can a small business gain exposure very quickly and especially, early on it's first few months or years? That’s a questions that rattles around the mind of every entrepreneur and small business owner. The task of gaining more people looking at your products and services, as well as what you stand for as a business seems, very challenging. To some degree this is quite right as there aren’t necessarily wrong ways but ineffective ways you can go about this. There are of course some tried and tested techniques but you should also, never be afraid to think outside the box and be experimental. One of the ways you can begin to enter into different industries, different talking circles, be involved in the general chit chat between business leaders, is to collaborate. Collaborating with those inside your industry and those outside it, is effective but in different ways as you can imagine. Contrary to what you might think, collaborating with those that are outside of your industry will be the most effective on social media and most importantly, at spreading your name around the world.
Overall, the article suggests a variety of collaborative methods that small businesses can use to gain exposure quickly, especially in their early stages. These techniques range from visiting client offices and conversing with influential industry figures to creating viral marketing campaigns and inspiring the younger generation.
Businesses often trade with each other. This is a perfect opportunity for you to be able to show how a business partner or rather client can use your products or services to the fullest extent. When you have a relationship that is close with another business, you can use this to make a marketing strategy that is rare, come to life. B2B is an area where many companies are looking to work together closely so that neither one is left high and dry at any moment. For example, you are a business that creates inventory management software in the clothing industry for other businesses. One day a client that is using your software has an issue with their fabrics inventory regarding your software. They need to be able to contact you immediately and see what they can do to fix this, such as your business going through the coding or updating their system remotely or at their office.
Set up a day with one of your clients that you feel comfortable with, and take a team of your best with you. During the day you should rollout new updates to the software and pairing the workers together, you can have each of your team guide the other employees through the new functions. The whole point of this is to film the day’s activities and make a video that is great for your website. In the form of a testimonial or better yet a case study, you have shots of your system in action and being used by the client’s business. Cut in some interviews with your client to show how your business works with partners to get the best performance for their needs. Potential clients can watch the video and see that you collaborate very closely with your clients to improve theirs and your business.
All the time nowadays, the best marketing strategies are when you collaborate with exciting entities outside of your industry. A great example is Ken Block and Gymkhana. Ken is a rally driver and in his Gymkhana series he drives a specially designed obstacle course while incorporating something new. This could be something like a task that someone else is doing while he is trying to complete the course. They are racing against each other but in different forms. It's loud, exciting and makes people sit up and take note of what is going on.
So think of something that is exciting, and how you could incorporate your business into that somehow. For example, you are a website building business that allows anyone with an account free or subscription based, to make their own website; kind of like Wix. Work together with a professional skydiver and set a challenge that the person who finishes their task first wins but there is an inherent time clock. This should be in the form of a video advertisement that can be played on video sharing platforms like YouTube but also shared on social media. Someone has to build a basic but functioning website while the skydiver jumps out of a plane and begins a descending journey back down to earth. If the skydiver opens their parachute and lands safely on the ground before the website is completed, they win. Something like this gets people to pay attention very closely. You can explain a lot about your products and services in a short amount of time using concise but precise language. Then you can cut in shots of the skydiver hurtling through the air at great speed. It's intense and exciting and is much better than someone just being filmed using your service for the first time in a blank room somewhere.
Certain people in industries carry a lot of weight behind their words. They have a lot of followers on social media and have became somewhat cult figures in their own right. They also have great knowledge about the industry and how things go on behind closed doors. People like Neil Degrasse Tyson are great examples of what these kinds of well-known figures in the world of business can do for your business. Just having a conversation with them and either recording it on video as part of your marketing strategy or just in the form of an interview for your business blog would greatly increase interest in your business.
Regardless of who you are collaborating with you have to know that the most effective technique for increasing your standings in the search results pages is to use off-page blogging. You can tackle this with the help of a professional SEO company that is an expert in off-page marketing skills. Guest blogging is a great way to increase your social media engagement because if guests are given a chance to express their ideas and talk about how they could find a use for your products or services, this makes their followers want to comment about it. Pretty soon you will have social media on fire, with burning questions about your business and how what you have to offer could be useful in other areas.
Businesses often find that going into schools to inspire the next generation is a great way to give themselves exposure in a meaningful light. You are working with kids, who are just starting out in life and not sure what kind awaits them in the working world. Filming your teams interacting with children that have differing personalities and showing them how they could use their character traits to use your products and services, you can plant a flag that you are inspiring the future generation of workers that will go into your industry. Much like a parent, you are giving them options and guidance of what they could achieve.
Without a doubt, when you collaborate with another business and make great examples of how well your products and services can work and get results, you showcase the high levels of your performance. Filming your collaboration with a business partner, you can use the interviews and clips as a case study to go in depth and explain in detail of the benefits to working with you. How about making your business go viral, by collaborating with something exciting and making an advertisement that uses a challenge as a means to make your products and or services simple to use, implement and what the key attributes are that make you special. A race is always a good premise that creates tension but excitement as well.
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