The Rule of 7: Should Your Small Business Use It? – Startups.co.uk

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How can my business increase its visibility?

The Rule of 7 has proved its worth over the years, and just because the channels available to marketers are so much more plentiful than they used to be, this doesn’t mean that the rule has become obsolete. It’s still a useful basic structure from which to work when a business is getting off the ground, and one that can be adapted as the business expands.

Here are our top seven tips for implementing the Rule of 7 in your own business: 

1. Know your client base

Who is your target customer? Where are they most likely to spend their real life or virtual time and thus be exposed to your brand? Create buyer personas that outline the demographic you’re targeting, as well as what their wants, needs and means are. This involves researching your customers and the client bases of your competitors and evaluating how your products and price points meet those wants and needs.

2. Make a plan

Now that you have a mental image of your customer, you should have a better idea of where they are likely to be exposed to mentions of your product. You should be better acquainted with which social media platforms they use; which websites they frequent; what types of events they attend and which media they read or watch. Based on this information, you should be able to determine how to improve brand  visibility and generate more sales.

3. Set up a remarketing plan

It’s one thing for a prospective customer to visit your website; it’s another thing for them to click through to another page. By activating a remarketing (or retargeting, as it is also known) plan, you can bring your brand back to the attention of someone who’s previously shown some interest, however brief, in your brand. Doing this via Google, LinkedIn and Facebook is low cost, and requires minimal effort on your part.

4. Put your digital prospecting channels in motion

Digital prospecting is all about attracting new audiences who are likely to convert to customers. Now that you are familiar with your buyer persona, you can create and activate a plan to develop your market and reach new customers within that persona. 

5. Ensure that your plan takes the entire buyer lifecycle into consideration

The buyer lifecycle starts with lack of awareness (of the product), to being interested in the product, to becoming a first-time customer. Once a sale has been made, the aim is to encourage the customer to become a repeat or regular customer, and finally to become active advocates of the brand. Make sure that your content marketing plan covers this entire lifecycle.

6. Promote your content via social channels

You should already be getting some SEO visibility via the content you’ve created but you should also amplify this content on various channels via a combination of paid, owned and organic techniques. A good content amplification strategy should inspire potential customers to read and share your content, getting you more impressions, engagement, more traffic and, ultimately, more leads resulting in more conversions and thus more revenue.

7. Invest time in lead nurturing

Nurture campaigns are most commonly conducted via emails which are sent to your audience to educate them about your product or to inform them of a special offer. Their purpose is to motivate customers, no matter what stage of the buying cycle they’re at, to take more of interest in your product, or to actively buy it, recommend it, or opt-in to mailouts. Making a customer feel ‘seen’ by and important to a brand has a massive impact on lead generation ‘sticking’ and converting to actual sales.

Infographic displaying the top seven ways for businesses to increase customer interactions

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