Remote businesses are ones that let employees work from wherever they see fit. This can be from a home office, a coffee shop, or even a shared coworking space.
The benefit of this style of business is that you can employ people from all over the world, widening the talent pool at your disposal. You also save a fortune as 100% remote businesses won’t have headquarters or offices.
As a consequence, the way you market a remote business can be different from how you market a traditional one. You’re certainly not focusing on driving foot traffic to a particular site, so what is the aim of the game?
Naturally, most of your work will be done via the internet. Remote businesses are almost 100% online, so that the primary focus will be generating online leads. The key way to do this is by driving web traffic to your website.
This is where you make sales, or leads can submit inquiries. With that in mind, here are some strategies to help you do just that, along with other tips and ideas that remote businesses should focus on when marketing themselves to an audience.
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Create the Ground Rules for Your Brand
Branding forms a core aspect of marketing as it influences everything that you do. Every business needs a brand image, which is how you wish to be seen by the wider world.
Do you want to put yourself out there as consummate professionals?
Are you trying to make people think that your business is really modern and laid back?
Your image is entirely up to you, but the key thing that matters is that it stays consistent across all of your marketing channels.
Moreover, with a remote business, you have the challenge of numerous employees working for you and interacting with customers in many different places. Thus, you need to ensure that all of your remote staff align with the brand image and interact in ways that reinforce this.
To do that, you need to create the ground rules for your brand. This means telling everyone how your brand should interact with others, the tone of voice you use, the type of content you create, and so on.
All of this helps you solidify a brand image that stays consistent, no matter which one of your remote employees is interacting with consumers.
Make Traditional Marketing More Measurable
Traditional marketing encompasses things like direct mail, print advertising, etc. Some of these techniques are null and void when you have a remote business. For example, things like door-to-door sales are absolutely pointless.
However, you can take some of the best traditional methods and add a digital twist to them, making them more measurable.
Look at direct mail, for example. A whopping 70% of consumers say direct mail is more personal than online interactions, with an open rate of up to 90%.
You could argue that the chances of someone viewing your direct mail are greater than them viewing an email – largely because letterboxes don’t have filtration systems that can mark your emails as promotional or spam.
Nevertheless, direct mail seems pointless for a remote business. You send some advertising material in the mail, but what do you gain from it? You have no headquarters to direct people to, so how is this impactful? The trick is to use direct mail printing and marketing services that let you implement QR codes or links on your content.
Therefore, you can measure how many people visit your site via these links. It directs traffic to your website, and you have a clear way of measuring the campaign’s success.
Put Most of Your Focus on the Digital Approach
While traditional methods can be tweaked to become more effective, digital marketing is really the saving grace for remote businesses. If your entire company is based online, the best way to promote it is through digital mediums.
Clearly, you’re looking at SEO and other search engine marketing methods here. Search engines are still the number one way for consumers to find businesses online. Most people’s first interactions with a company are through search engines.
As such, a firm focus of your marketing strategy should be on creating as strong a search engine presence as possible. You want to be seen on the first pages for all searches relating to your business. Whether this is done organically or through paid search, it doesn’t matter!
Social media is another powerful digital marketing tool to utilize. Growing a large social presence is crucial if you want your remote business to thrive. At the same time, social media represents one of the best places for online advertising. 83% of marketers used it in 2020, ranking it second behind search engine marketing in terms of success.
Loads of people scroll through social media every day, and you can create ads that target your key audience. So, the adverts are relevant to them, seamlessly blend in with their scrolling, and can catch their eye. Thus, more clicks are had, and more traffic is diverted to your site.
Build an Aura of Professionalism
One of the drawbacks of remote businesses is that you can sometimes struggle to seem professional in comparison to other brands. This is because you obviously have no headquarters, so consumers might worry about doing business with you.
In reality, this can easily be addressed by building an aura of professionalism. This starts with a great website and strong social media presence, but it also includes things like a virtual address.
Here, you can give the illusion of an office headquarters in a central business district in any city you like. It instantly makes you seem more authentic and professional, building trust with the consumer. When trust exists, the chances of conversions increases.
There you go; some simple strategies to market your remote business. It’s all about generating traffic to your website, as this is where all of your money will be made. You’ve got no physical location to worry about, so your entire budget can be dedicated to online traffic!
