Marketing is more than just having a bright red truck and waving a banner. Marketing covers a broad spectrum of actions that persuade people to purchase your product or use your service. Poetically, marketing is also an ever-moving process that breaths life into what you do as a business owner every day. It starts with an idea, takes you through manufacturing, wraps you in sales, and ends with fulfillment and sales.

One of the areas that has been historically underdeveloped for small business marketers is the area of customer relationship and outreach. This is unfortunate, as this segment encompasses all the things you do to build customer loyalty and repeat customers. While traditionally, marketing has focused on the ‘buying customer’, today’s market is much more complex than that.

Today, you have to make sure that the message about your product or service reaches the customer in a meaningful way. If you don’t have the budget for TV advertising or radio advertising, you should definitely look into social media marketing. Today, social media is emerging as the marketing solution to reach your target audience across multiple platforms. For example, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, and Instagram are all important platforms that can give you a real audience to interact with. In addition to that, these sites offer relevant customer information, which can be leveraged for your marketing. Here’s an example of how you can leverage social media to advertise your product:

Twitter is a great place to reach many people at once, including your target audience. However, many people are ‘tweeting’ or updating their status messages each day. If you post relevant and interesting information in your status messages, you can easily attract followers. This is one of the best ways for Internet marketers to reach their customers, who might not otherwise be aware of their presence. Just be sure that you update regularly, so that you stay in the forefront of your customers’ minds.

A visit to a company website is a simple way to find out more about your target market. But what happens if the site isn’t user-friendly? You don’t need to reinvent the wheel; you simply need to make it easier for your target market to find the information they’re looking for. Whether you have an in-house search engine marketing team or you outsource it to a professional company, you’ll need a good navigation system in place to promote your products.

Social media offers a unique opportunity to promote your product and increase public image by creating a profile that is streamlined and interactive. By adding video, podcast, RSS feeds, and more, you can easily make your presence known to the public. And the best part is that these platforms are free. A social media marketing plan can be a great investment toward your online business. With a solid marketing strategy, generating leads will be easy and generating sales will be quick.