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FEATURE<br />
Marketing<br />
EASY WAYS TO BOOST<br />
YOUR BUSINESS<br />
In such a competitive marketplace, it’s important to stand out from the crowd<br />
but knowing the best approach is not easy. Here are some simple tips from<br />
marketing expert and TTW editor John Hunter.<br />
SEO-FRIENDLY WEBSITE<br />
If you’ve been in business any length of time,<br />
hopefully you have a functional website for<br />
people to connect with your business and<br />
buy your products.<br />
The next step is to ensure it’s optimised<br />
for both search engines and conversions. This<br />
means getting organic traffic to your site.<br />
Create good-quality content on trending<br />
topics in your niche and ensure you use the<br />
right keywords (a quick Google search will<br />
explain this more). Use the main ones on<br />
landing pages, titles, meta descriptions and<br />
so on.<br />
And don’t forget to sharpen up your site<br />
design and ensure the page-load speed is<br />
good.<br />
TELLING YOUR STORY<br />
Connecting with your audience and setting<br />
your business apart from others is crucial.<br />
Telling the story of your brand is a great way<br />
to do this.<br />
How and why did it start, who are the<br />
people behind it, what makes it different<br />
from any competitors?<br />
Having a compelling ‘About Us’ page<br />
is a simple way to do this and will help<br />
customers identify with you, making them<br />
more likely to buy from your business.<br />
SOCIAL MEDIA<br />
A cheap (or free!) and effective marketing<br />
platform is social media.<br />
Do some research to ascertain which<br />
platforms your audience use the most, find<br />
the right ‘voice’ to talk to them in, ensure<br />
you post regularly, make sure you use good<br />
or quirky images, vary the content, tag in<br />
relevant people or partners and don’t forget<br />
to include a link to your website to drive<br />
traffic.<br />
BE AN EXPERT<br />
Setting yourself apart from your competitors<br />
is important so become number one in your<br />
field.<br />
You could start a blog about fishing<br />
locally, an angling discipline you love, offer<br />
tips and advice, review the latest gear or<br />
answer questions on how to repair tackle or<br />
build rods, for example.<br />
You can do this with videos too, which<br />
makes your content even more compelling.<br />
Then share this via social media with links<br />
back to your website.<br />
Establishing yourself as an industry expert<br />
means people will trust what you say… and<br />
what you offer. It might lead to interviews,<br />
podcasts or invitations to events, where you<br />
can promote your business further.<br />
MAKE SOME VIDEOS<br />
This follows on from becoming an expert<br />
in your niche, since video is the best way to<br />
engage people – everyone loves good, and<br />
informative, content.<br />
Whether it’s tips and tricks, a product<br />
review or new gear that’s just arrived, you<br />
can create a video about it.<br />
Even better, if it’s a tutorial or a video<br />
that explains more about that product then,<br />
once again, you will not only help potential<br />
customers but you can encourage them to<br />
visit your store or website.<br />
LOYALTY COUNTS<br />
One cool trick is to set up some kind of<br />
loyalty scheme or rewards programme.<br />
Offer rewards such as discounts or<br />
additional services in return for referrals<br />
from existing customers to their friends.<br />
You can also offer something similar for<br />
loyalty. This can be anything from rewards<br />
for buying regularly from you – for example<br />
collecting tokens on the value of each<br />
purchase – or from simply following, liking<br />
and sharing your social media posts.<br />
Hunter Media<br />
john@hunter-media.co.uk<br />
www.huntermedia.co.uk<br />
42 www.tackletradeworld.com
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