Making business marketing simple

Sometimes company owners may think that a small business marketing plan has to be more complex than necessary. With simplicity being proven to work in the past, the Washington Post encouraged entrepreneurs to make their lives easier by keeping it simple.

Business owners who believe they need to continuously bombard consumers with information about how great their product is are mistaken, according to the source. Recent research from Corporate Executive Board shows that consumers are constantly bombarded with promotional offers and messages from different brands, which makes them overthink purchases and increases the likelihood that they will pass on buying something.

Overwhelming consumers with a large volume of information can also damage the brand loyalty, making consumers unsubscribe from a company's promotional offers and avoiding ever signing up again.

Findings of the report also include that most consumers aren't open to a relationship with a company's brand, but business owners sometimes believe the opposite. Twenty-three percent of consumers in the study reported that they have a relationship with a brand, while others made statements that they didn't think it was needed to be that close to the company.

Another myth often associated with small business marketing is that interaction builds brand relationships. Sixty-four percent of consumers who participated in the study reported that their current brand relationship is based on shared values, showing frequent interactions such as emails, texts messages and phone calls aren't the most important features of a marketing plan.

Out of the 7,000 consumers and 200 marketing executives who were surveyed in the CEB study, there was one key to success agreed upon in small business marketing: Decision simplicity. The Post reported that increasing the perceived ease of purchase by 1 point on a 5-point scale would result in a 96 percent increase in customer loyalty.

According to the source, small businesses can streamline the decision-making process by trusting information such as ratings and reviews from trusted consumers advisors, learning how to effectively market products or services, and weighing options confidently by making clear buying guides and information that differentiates the brand from others.

More business owners are also using LinkedIn marketing now to increase their business' reach by displaying ads, polls and recommendations, which have been proven to help companies in the past.