Big corporations spend billions of dollars on advertising plans each year. But as a small business owner, you simply don’t have those resources to work with. More importantly, you can’t afford to invest in an idea that won’t yield positive results.

The good news? You don’t have to worry about that issue any longer!

In this article, we’ll tell you how to create advertising plans for small businesses that are almost guaranteed to be successful. We’ll tell you what mistakes to look out for, as well as how you can sustain your success long-term.

Start by Setting Some Goals

If you’re new to advertising, figuring out how to get started can be quite difficult. The entire process can be overwhelming for newcomers, which can often lead to you not starting your marketing efforts at all, which of course isn’t a good thing.

So, where is a good place to begin with advertising strategy? Well, we recommend that you start by writing down some short-term and long-term goals that you hope to achieve. 

This will not only help you clearly define what it is you want from advertising but will also help you pick a direction to go in. It’ll also give you something you can show a professional, should you decide to invest in any help with your marketing needs. 

What are some good short-term and long-term goals? Well, for short-term goals, pick something simple, like posting on a social media site every day for a month. A long-term goal could be doubling the size of your customer base in a year or two, it just depends on you and what you think defines success.

Set a Budget and Stick to It

Once you’ve got your goals in place, it’s time to start figuring out how much money you can afford to spend on advertising. We’ll be honest, you don’t need to break the bank to get the results that you’re looking for. You do, however, need to be prepared to spend some money, as well as a great deal of your own time, on advertising.

If you decide that the help of a marketing expert is needed, you’ll need to make sure that you’ve budgeted for that. Think you do the job yourself using affordable-yet-effective marketing strategies? That’s fine, as long as you can make sure that you have the time in your schedule needed to do so the right way.

As you go along, you need to find creative hacks that you can use to maximize your budget. Things like picking efficient advertising strategies (more on that later), or liming yourself to a few basic ideas, are the best ways to do this.

Know Your Target Audience

Want to create a stronger connection with your customers and clients? Trying to find ways to humanize your brand and create a unique voice that people love? To do both of these things, you first need to know your target audience and what they expect out of you marketing-wise.

Having a firm grasp on your target audience, and what they like, will help you make all marketing-related decisions going forward.

The first step to knowing your target audience is knowing where they spend the majority of their time. For example, if you do research, and you determine that your target audience is active on the social media website Twitter, investing resources into Twitter is more than a good idea.

You also need to have a strong idea of what type of content they like, as no two target audiences are the same. Again, this will help you make the tough decisions later on, like what kind of content to create. That’s why you need to find the answers to these questions early on in the process.

Scout the Competition for Ideas

Not sure where your target audience is located at? Don’t know what kind of content they’ll find the most enjoyable? Don’t worry, you can get the answers to all of these questions, plus more useful information, by scouting your competition for good ideas.

A pro tip? Write down the name of your 3 biggest competitors and do some Googling. Under each name, jot down how many social media followers they have on each platform, if they have a blog, as well as if they run TV or radio advertisements.

Odds are you’ll notice a trend involving all three competitors. They’ll most likely have the most followers on the same social media platforms. And if they advertise in any other way, they probably all use the same concepts and ideas to do so.

You can take these core principles, tweak them, and make them your own. That way you can figure out what and where you need to invest your resources, allowing you to find success faster.

It goes without saying, but when you’re scouting your competition for ideas, be sure to avoid stealing ideas outright. Not only will your competitors notice this, but so will your target audience, which isn’t what you want.

Focus on Two or Three Ideas

After you’ve set your goals, and scouted your competition for ideas, you should have all the information you need to start creating a solid advertising plan. While your biggest questions should be answered by now, it’s important to note that there are still a few major mistakes that you need to be sure to avoid.

For example, it’s easy to get too excited and try to invest in a ton of fun ideas. This usually leads to you spreading your resources (and yourself) too thin, which means positive results are unlikely.

Our advice? Stick to two or three marketing strategies and let the rest of your ideas go. This will allow you to put all that you have into each of those ideas, maximizing your chance for success.

Because you’re only picking two or three ideas to pursue, make sure that they’re strong. If you’ve done your research properly, you should have a ton of confidence in your choices. So, if you still have doubts, go back to the drawing board and start over.

Invest in Efficient Marketing Strategies

Working with a small advertising budget? Worried about wasting valuable resources on ideas that won’t help you reach your goals? Start out by invest in affordable-but-efficient strategies that offer a low risk but a high reward.

We’ve touched on this already, but social media marketing is something that can be done in-house and on a small budget. So, if your target audience is active on a site like Facebook, you can use their ads system, and behavioral targeting, to advertise to those users directly.

Email marketing and blogging are two more digital advertising strategies that are worth considering. Both require a great deal of effort on your part, but when done correctly, can yield big-budget results.

If you’re looking for affordable, traditional marketing strategies, look into getting some fliers made for your brand or business. Fliers, along with magnets and stickers, are affordable to make and can help you get your name out there in a hurry.

Track Your Analytics Closely

Almost every digital marketing strategy comes equipped with an analytics feature that you can use to track your results. You need to pay close attention to those numbers, as they’ll tell you what kind of content works best and what doesn’t.

This information is crucial when crafting future content plans. It will also help you keep up with progress, helping you determine if you’re close to reaching your goals or not.

For traditional marketing strategies, like fliers and radio advertisements, you may have to work harder to track these numbers. The best way to do this? Ask your new customers how they found your company. Keep track of their answers, and you can check back over time and see what strategies gave you the best results.

Make Necessary Changes Overtime

Once you start advertising your brand or business, it won’t take long for your numbers to start talking to you. Remember, those numbers are your customers and clients, and their feedback, which is why you need to pay attention to them closely.

Odds are your numbers are going to tell you to make some changes. Make those changes, and be receptive to change, that way you can maximize your advertising efforts.

Still Need Help Creating Advertising Plans?

When it comes to creating advertising plans, the process isn’t as complicated as it may seem on paper. As long as you do your research, and you know what to look out for, you should be able to create a strategy yourself that works for you and your brand or business.

Looking for more advertising tips and tricks? Check back with our blog often, as we’re always posting new and useful information for marketers.

We know that social media is an essential part of all marketing strategies. 

Research shows that 72% of Americans are on some form of social media. This means that it is the perfect way to reach your target audience. 

Yet, starting a social media marketing campaign can be a daunting task if not done correctly. 

Whether this is your first social media campaign or you’ve already created several, there are still plenty of tips and tricks that you can learn to master the art.

Be sure to keep reading for our guide on the seven essential tips you need to know for starting a social media marketing campaign. 

1. Decide on Your Goals

When you’re looking for how to grow your business on social media, you need to decide what your goals are for a marketing campaign. 

Will you be creating a social media marketing campaign to help you get more followers? Are you promoting an upcoming event or sale? Is your goal to increase your engagement with your current followers? 

You need to figure out what the goal of the campaign is when creating the content for it. This is because you will need to decide how to make your campaign interesting and relevant to your audience while still convincing them of your goal. 

Once you’ve figured out the foundation of your social media marketing campaign, then you can move onto the next steps. 

2. Create a Budget

One of the best tips for social media marketing is to make sure that you have a budget. Many businesses have been increasing their budget for social media marketing over the past few years because the need for this type of marketing is increasing. 

Yet, small businesses can still get by with a smaller budget for social media marketing. 

Somethings that you may want to budget for are creating content, paying for promotions, community engagement, or analytics tools. 

3. Figure Out How You Will Promote

Another one of our social media advertising tips is figuring out how you will promote the campaign across other platforms. Be sure to plan out all your content in advance. 

Each platform is going to require different kinds of content that you need to create. For example, if you’re looking to create an Instagram Story, then you might want to make a short video or an interesting series of photos for people to click through. 

On the other hand, if you want to make a Facebook event, then you’re going to need an interesting banner. This will help attract people’s attention and will make your event look professional. 

4. Stay Consistent With Posting

One of the best social media marketing tips is to make sure that you’re consistent with posting. Especially when you’re creating a social media campaign, you’re going to want to be sure that you’re posting for the entire week or month on each platform. 

Since you’ve already taken the time to plan out your content, then the next step is creating a social media posting schedule. This will help you to make sure that you’re getting content out each day and posting regularly to each platform. 

Be sure to do some research and see when your followers engage the most with your posts. This is the best time to post content because you will get more traffic to your social media accounts. 

5. Creating the Content

Now is the fun part of social media marketing strategies, and it is creating the content. You’ve decided where you want to post and when you’re going to post it, but now you need to figure out exactly what you’re going to post. 

Be sure to make relevant and engaging content that your followers are going to be entertained by. 

You don’t need to be a graphic designer or even hire one to get interesting content for your social media accounts. There are free resources on the internet where you can make cool graphics to post on every platform. 

Something else you can do is get out there and take interesting photos or videos. As long as you have someone willing to hold the camera for you, then you could be the focal point of an awesome video or photograph. They make tripods for a reason as well!

6. Post What You’ve Created

After you’ve finished making all your engaging content, it is now time to post.

You can sit behind your computer or smartphone waiting to post at a certain time each day, or you can schedule your posts. Since you already created a posting schedule for social media, then scheduling your posts should be easy!

There are tons of different options for you to schedule your content to be posted. This will make it so that you don’t have to worry about things getting posted at a specific time each day. 

7. Be Sure to Engage

When content is being posted, you don’t want to be far from your computer or smartphone. You’ll have comments and feedback rolling in, which means you need to get to engaging!

Creating a conversation should be one of your top priorities when posting on social media, as this will help to bring more attention to you and your posts. Make sure that you respond, like, favorite, or retweet anything and everything that comes your way. This will help with the social media algorithm. 

Having a quick response time shows that you’re present and that your company cares. Be sure to set up alerts on your phone so that you will know when someone is engaging with you on social media.  

Starting a Social Media Marketing Campaign

There is a lot that goes into starting a social media marketing campaign, and not every campaign will follow the same steps. Be sure that you’re flexible when creating your social media campaigns and see what works for you and your brand. 

If you’re looking for more advice on marketing or want updates on business, tech, or lifestyle, then our website has your back! Be sure to bookmark our page so that you can keep coming back for more helpful tips and tricks that you will want to know. 

The internet is one of the most powerful tools business owners have at their disposal. It makes getting your company in front of prospective clients and customers easier and gives you a way to market your brand to a wider audience.

Believe it or not, more than 65 percent of people believe that the internet is the best place to find information about companies and businesses.

To make the most of this tool, you’ll need a great website in place. Though it’s possible to design the site on your own, doing so isn’t always the best idea.

Here are a few key benefits of investing in professional web design for your company’s website.

1. Professional Web Design Inspires Confidence

One of the biggest challenges for any business is inspiring customer loyalty and confidence in your brand. When you’re new to the industry, you need to create an image that makes your company look professional, knowledgeable, and better than the competition.

If your website is overly simple or uses a theme that countless other businesses already use, customers won’t be as likely to work with you.

Why? Because your brand doesn’t stand out as a trustworthy provider. Instead, you blend in with others and fail to communicate just how unique your company is.

By investing in professional website design, you’ll immediately inspire confidence in both current and prospective customers. Remember, your website is your best chance to make a great first impression. A professional website design will do just that.

2. It Keeps Your Company Competitive

Like it or not, the internet opens businesses up to more competition both locally and across the country. This means your website needs to always look its best and attract the type of attention you want your business to get.

When you handle your own website design, you’ll find it harder to keep up with your most successful competitors.

They’ve likely invested in professional design and take the time to make updates to their websites often. When you’re on your own, keeping up with those changes or implementing them first won’t be easy.

Professional design experts can create a website that rivals your competitors’ and makes it easy for you to maintain your edge over time.

3. Great Designs Save You Money in the Long Run

Believe it or not, working with a web design company can often save you money compared to managing everything on your own. Think of it this way: when you design a website without a professional designer, you’ll sacrifice your time to the process.

At best, it will take a few days to get everything up and running. At worst, it can take months of trial and error to get things right.

That’s time you’re not able to spend doing your job and earning the money you need to keep the business afloat.

With the help of a professional web design company, the site will be up and running fast. You’ll be able to focus on keeping the business running smoothly and efficiently without sacrificing the quality of your website.

4. Pros Can Optimize Your Site for Search Engines

Search engines work to help people searching online find businesses and service providers that meet their needs. A well-designed website is the best way to attract positive attention from those search engines.

It needs to be responsive, have features that search engines can read, and content that shows the search engines what the business is all about. The more optimized it is, the more traffic the site will get and the more business you’ll receive.

Unfortunately, optimizing websites for search engines while also making a good impression on prospective customers isn’t as simple as you might think. Trying to handle it yourself is the easiest way to send your site to the bottom of the search engine’s result page.

Professionals can optimize the site quickly so it’s ready for both customers and search engines as soon as it goes live.

5. Mobile Responsiveness Is a Must

More people rely on mobile devices to connect to the internet than any other method. In fact, by 2025, an estimated 72 percent of people will use only their mobile devices to access the internet.

Unfortunately, many standard website designs get built for computers, not tablets and smartphones. This means the websites won’t look as good and may not display information correctly.

When you work with a professional, mobile-responsive designs are much easier to put in place. In fact, many designers include the service as part of their normal website build.

This saves you from having to create two distinct website designs. Even better, it spares you from learning the nuances of transitioning from standard computer layouts to mobile-friendly versions.

6. Future Updates Will Be Easy to Make

Those free website design templates are incredibly simple and basic. This is great if you’re designing the site on your own. However, they make future updates incredibly tough to implement.

One of the key advantages of a website built by a professional is that they’re designed with future updates in mind. Making changes to the layout, content, and even the color scheme is easy and fast.

Many business owners will find those changes easy to implement themselves. However, if you need help, your website designer will be able to make the necessary updates for you.

See These Professional Web Design Benefits for Yourself

Though it’s possible to build a website on your own, it’s not always in the best interest of your business. Investing in professional web design is one of the best things you can do.

Once the site is live, you’ll see these benefits almost immediately.

Just remember to take your time and find a design expert that you trust. Look at examples of their previous work and don’t hesitate to ask for references to see what other clients thought of their services.

For more helpful tips to make taking your business online as simple as possible, check out our latest posts.

Web design for an automotive website is a tad challenging. On the one hand, you don’t want it to seem like any other automotive website, but on the other hand, you may not be such a creative. You can always create a dull and tasteless website, but it won’t do much to attract prospective customers.

The automotive business is more than just about selling cars. Some automotive enterprises sell parts, while others specialize in repairs, bodywork, or accessories. Regardless of your website niche, proper web design could be just what you need to take your website to the next level.

However, for most business owners who only know a smattering of IT, getting the best automotive web design is easier said than done. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a computer guru to have the best design for your automotive business.  That’s because you’ll most likely outsource the web design to a third-party company.

For the greatest effect, you’ll have to be very involved in the web design process. Your input will be crucial in creating a web design that appeals to your specific demographic. This post will highlight a few incredible designs you should consider for your automotive site.

1. Minimalism 

Minimalism is a great approach for an automotive site, especially if you’ve clamped down on the site’s objective. Minimalism stays away from the rather aggressive outlook of most automotive sites and instead adopts a more collected approach. This design is great for marketing family cars or attracting a rather chic demographic.

A minimalist design is not only pleasant to look at, but also makes for a seamless website. With only the basics in place, loading times will be lightning fast. If you’re for the minimalist design, you could try eliminating the following.

Sidebars – Only old-fashioned websites still have sidebars in this new decade. Start by getting rid of the sidebars for a smoother and better-looking website.

Menu items – This isn’t to say that you should eliminate the menu in its entirety. All this means is that you should whittle down your menu to only the essentials.

Stock photos – Similarly, you don’t want excess stock photos muddying up your website. Only use a few relevant photos.

Doing so will help you inch closer to a minimalist design for your website. However, before you embrace such a design, make sure you have your automotive site’s objective on lock. It’s way easier to come up with a minimalist design if you do so.

2. Consider the One-Page Design

The one-page design is just as the name suggests. Every web page consists of a single page containing all the information that you keep scrolling down. It’s the opposite of the fold design, where all relevant information is at the top of the page.

The fold is a great design, but not many users will scroll to the next page since everything they need is at the top of the first page. However,  with the one-page design, visitors are more likely to scroll down to the bottom of the page. When Newegg adopted the one-page design, it led to a 30% increase in conversion.

Instead of the user going through several pages, confine them to a single page. You’d be surprised how something so little could boost your numbers, especially for automotive ecommerce.

3. Don’t Neglect Your Mobile Site

Folks spend, on average, about three hours and fifteen minutes on their phones every day. That’s why you should never overlook mobile devices during your web designing. In fact, designing for mobile devices is a great place to start your web design.

Having an incredible mobile design is a great way to capture a huge demographic of mobile users. Plus, Google announced the mobile-first index for search engine rankings. That means Google will prioritize sites with mobile websites in their SERP ranking.

However, you need a smooth and seamless mobile site to rank high on search engine results pages. So pay as much attention to your mobile site as you would to your desktop site.

4. Be Sharp With Your Content Formatting

Content is what sells your website and, by extension, your products, and services. As such, it’s essential to be sharp on how you format your content. Remember, ultimately, your site content is what your visitors come to see when they visit your automotive site. 

You’d think content formatting would be a walk in the park for anyone who has ever used a word processor. However, web content formatting isn’t like your word processor formatting. For proper web formatting, you’ll have to place yourself in the shoes of your visitors.

The mistake most people make with web content is oversaturating their sites. While you want to give your visitors all that you can, overdoing it is a no-no. Most users find oversaturated content a bit overwhelming.

For precise content formatting, make sure you use the following.

Headings – Headings are a great way to structure your website and make it easier for your web users to read through your content. They are great anchor points for scanning through the website and focusing on the main points.

Paragraphs – paragraphs hep break down your content into small readable chunks and are also great for visual appeal.  Don’t have a large blob of text, instead break it down into paragraphs.

Tweak your fonts – Get a little creative with your fonts to stand out from the pack. However, don’t do anything unorthodox, or it will look plain weird.

Work with your web designer for the best content formatting options. Also, do your best to switch it up once in a while to avoid having a stale website.

You Need a Standout Automotive Website

Having an amazing automotive website may be just what you need to take your automotive business to the next level. With the above tips, doing so should be a walk in the park. Remember, you’re never too good for professional help, especially if you’re in a very competitive niche.

Automotive sites aren’t our only area of specialization. For more informative reads, be sure to check out the other pieces on the site.