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Week 15 Part A: Developing Your Marketing Strategy

Throughout this semester's course on Social Media, I have really been able to get a taste of how to better use and understand the specific platforms in regards to my small business. As a millennial, I of course already had a fairly good understanding of how to use social media and knew that it is a vital part of running a successful business. Clearly, it's impossible to scroll through Instagram or Facebook without seeing ads for businesses with clickable links that direct you to their profile or website, so when I began my business I absolutely knew I had to have some sort of presence on those two platforms at least. What I didn't know, and what I've began to learn are the details and knowledge that go in to creating a business profile that is actually successful and efficient. 

What this course has done is force me to look more in depth at what goes into a social media presence and how to operate it with more ease. What once seemed daunting has now become exciting and accessible and I'm eager to continue learning about social media and how to incorporate it into my business model. Some of the channels I am excited to grow are my Instagram, Facebook, email marketing with newsletters, and LinkedIn. These several platforms are where I want to direct my focus each month and see how it affects my fanbase and sales.

For now, my marketing budget remains fairly small since I am still a new and growing business. I am running this all essentially on my own, with the help of my spouse. We are both learning together and as we go since neither of us have a background in business or marketing. Our strategy is to now create more quality posts on Instagram and Facebook which we will dedicate several hours a week to create scheduled posts that will appear daily. This has been an exceptional tool that I learned while in this course and will take complete advantage of in order to maximize my time. 

One thing that I have to take into consideration about my business right now, is that at the moment I do not have the capacity to produce the amount of product that I eventually want to reach. This is due to my location and lack of resources. Because of this limitation I have to limit my marketing and advertising to stay consistent with my abilities. My advertising objectives will be directed at keeping my viewers informed of my pop-up locations and where they can purchase my cookies. As I slowly start to acquire the machinery to produce more and properly package my product for shipment, I will shift my advertising objectives to encourage my audience to place online orders and to buy my products in stores. This is when I will begin expanding my budget and doing more paid ads within Instagram and Facebook and focus on my SEO to direct people to my website. 

Furthermore, email marketing will be a huge part of my strategy because I know how effective it can be when used properly. Using newsletters and special offers for my subscribers is a great way to boost sales and get people to my locations. For all of this and more, I will most likely end up hiring someone to maintain. As much as I have learned and am eager to utilize, I am also realistic and know that organization and details are not my strong suit. Advertising and marketing and running social media platforms requires a bit of focus and organization so I would definitely like my budget to include someone to help with it all. However, I am grateful to have gained more knowledge and insight so that I can do some myself and be able to work with someone and understand how they are managing my platforms, which is incredibly important and powerful. 

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