According to the latest research from the Washington DC based marketing research company, The Manifest, reveals that nearly 95% of all small businesses in the USA are not overly concerned with the two things that would actually allow them to reach what they have stated is their primary goal. A huge percentage of the 529 small business owners they recently interviewed told the researchers that their overall primary goal for their company was to increase overall revenue. However, 94% of those companies are pretty much ignoring the two major factors in getting the the land of increased revenue.
- The two major factors that 94% of small business owners seem to be ignoring are engaging and retaining their current customer base and expanding their SEO marketing efforts. The ignoring of a loyal customer base has been going on for many decades as too many small businesses, and almost all of the big ones, ignore the 80-20 rule in which 80% of your business is coming from just 20% of your customers. New customers are great but it is your current base that will allow you to truly grow. Customer acquisition is a time consuming and costly affair which results in only around 10% of them coming on board. Pay attention to the customers you have and the retention rates are generally between 70%-80%.
- According to The Manifest’s research: Lauren Douglas, chief marketing officer for Fountainhead ME, a marketing agency in California, said it’s important to create a relationship with current customers to retain them. “Make them feel that you are talking to them personally, and you will improve brand loyalty,” Douglas said, “By continuing to communicate with customers, businesses make people feel valued and wanted, enticing them to come back.If small businesses neglect their current customers, they miss out on an opportunity to make easier sales with people who have already expressed interest in their services.
- As far as SEO marketing efforts go, there really is little excuse for not being more on top of such an important weapon. Those businesses that are not throwing much of what they have at a solid SEO strategy may soon be left behind. The research also reported that: Small businesses seek new ways to increase traffic to their site, but very few are focused on improving their search rankings. If a business’ revenue is based largely on web traffic, though, then SEO is vital to creating demand for its website. SEO sends organic traffic to a company’s website through non-paid efforts. Small businesses can optimize their websites for search rankings by targeting keywords, building backlinks, writing high-quality content, and improving site speed. More than 70% of users scroll past ads to see the organic search results because people trust these sites more than paid ads.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer