Whether you have an in-house marketing team or you’re outsourcing your marketing, below are five marketing activities for successful small businesses.

It’s almost that time of year again when you review your marketing plans and set new business goals for next year. You’re probably going to start by reflecting back on what worked this year and what did not.

If your biz is anything like mines, you’re probably looking to put more resources and time into marketing.

You might even be thinking about hiring a professional marketing team to define, plan and execute your marketing plans.

Whether you have an in-house marketing team or you’re outsourcing your marketing, developing a marketing strategy is only the first step toward achieving your business goals.

Below are 5 marketing activities that are essential for successful small businesses.

Content Marketing

The purpose of content marketing is to create brand awareness, promote events and services, inform the target audience, engage them and bring them back to the website.

Content marketing efforts can be centered on publishing a blog. A blog can keep your website fresh and interesting in order to increase traffic. It can also serve as part of your SEO strategy in order to increase website traffic. It can illustrate your industry expertise and get people to trust you.

By producing stories, profiles, essays, and advice, a blog can show the life of your brand. It should not be exclusive to text but should also include rich images, videos, audio, and photography.

Social Media Marketing

Much like content marketing — the purpose of social media is to create brand awareness, promote events and services, inform the target audience, engage them and bring them back to the website.

The social media channels should be used to distribute blog content, announce events and communicate the brand messaging + vision.

A consistent social media presence (in conjunction with the blog) will help to build relationships, gain followers, increase engagement and create the online community.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO helps your company get found online and where your business will appear when someone enters specific search terms. You want to be deliberate in how you publish content on your website, being sure to include words that your prospective customers use as they describe your product or service.

Search engines tweak their ranking algorithms constantly, and it can be tough to keep up with it all. Sites like Social Media Examiner and Moz are great resources for practical, common sense SEO advice, but contact a pro that can help attract more people to your website.

Conversion Rate Optimization

Conversion rate optimization is just a fancy way to describe the process of testing different things in order to get more business opportunities from the website or blog visitors you might already have.

Testing small, incremental changes on your site can include re-working the writing, design, landing pages or images on your site in order to generate better results.

Regardless of how small or large your business may be, these activities can be crucial to the success of your marketing strategy.

Email Marketing

The purpose of email marketing is to promote events and services, inform the target audience, engage them and convert them into clients. The newsletter should be designed to reflect the brand look and personality of the website.