The Found Gen

Marketing That Works.

business development

by

How to Set Your Small Business Up for Marketing Success in 2025

The start of a new year can bring on a feeling of freshness and enthusiasm for small businesses. Even if your fiscal year doesn’t align with the calendar year, January still beckons renewal. It should also be a time for reflection. If you want to set your business up for marketing success this year, and we mean really set your business up for success, we recommend taking a full and complete step back, like all the way back. To the very beginning.

Build Your Foundation for Marketing Success

The foundation for any marketing strategy lies in establishing your core values, vision and goals. You can’t go out into the world to market your business if you aren’t able to clearly define your business focus and process for delivering success. 

No matter if you’re a startup or an established business with decades of success under your belt, it’s always a good idea to step back and revisit the foundational components that make your business tick. Here are some areas for your SMB to reflect on:

  • What are your core values?
  • What vision do you have for your business?
  • What is your process for delivering success?
  • What is your focus for this quarter, this year, the next 3-5 years?

Though this exercise takes a little time and effort, the results are fruitful. For one, it brings your priorities back into clear focus and prevents them from getting diluted by the dozens of other tasks that inevitably fall on your plate. It also establishes accountability for your goals and ultimately drives your marketing strategy.

Armed with fresh insight and renewed focus, you can map out your short- and long-term goals and ensure your marketing plan directly supports those goals. 

Success Begets Success

Setting your small business up for marketing success in 2025 is all about going back to the basics. Revisit your core values, vision and focus so you can ensure that your marketing efforts support your overall business objectives. If you need guidance, accountability or a team ready to implement an effective marketing strategy that supports your goals, turn to us at The Found Gen.  

by

What to Expect in the World of Marketing in 2025

Ready or not a new year is upon us, and with it comes uncertainty tinged with opportunity. While no one knows quite what the year will bring, we are all poised to make our predictions. No doubt technology will continue to play an ever-increasing role in the ways we interact with products, services and each other, but that doesn’t mean we should abandon traditional marketing tactics. 

On the contrary, now may be the perfect time to lean into that which we can control – the content you post on your website, the emails you send to your prospects and clients, and other tried-and-true marketing strategies that yield results year in and year out. 

New Year, Same Game Plan

As you begin putting your 2025 marketing strategy in motion, bright, flashy objects will surely garner your attention. Generative AI, voice search, viral videos and more will all be relevant and impact how we market our businesses. They just shouldn’t dominate your focus. If you let your eyes veer too far off the mark, progress will suffer. 

Likewise, social media is another bright shiny object we love to hate, and at the present moment, it finds itself going through some serious upheaval (see Twitter, Meta, TikTok). As a business, you should be prepared for big changes on platforms you don’t have control over.

Instead of putting all your eggs in one marketing basket (especially a basket you have no control over!), stick with what works – put your efforts into blogging, email marketing, and more traditional or outside-of-the-box strategies rather than relying heavily on social media this year. Your future marketing efforts will thank you.

As we wade into the waters of 2025, stay focused on your short- and long-term goals. Avoid the temptation of getting swept up in what everyone else is doing and take charge of what you can control – building relationships, sharing insight and serving up solutions that meet your clients’ needs. Our team at the Found Gen is here to help. Call us today to schedule a consultation. 

by

Are You Getting the Most (Business) Out of LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the social media platform for professionals, but it’s become so much more than just a place to share professional accomplishments, search for jobs, and connect with other industry professionals — it is a powerful tool to grow your business, especially when you apply some grassroots business development efforts. 

Why LinkedIn is Networking 2.0

Small businesses looking to grow their market share know they need to be on LinkedIn. What they don’t always know is the best way to leverage the social media platform to grow their business. 

Sure, optimizing your business profile is key, as is sharing valuable content and engaging with other people’s posts to improve your visibility and strengthen relationships, but there’s another networking strategy that may not have crossed your mind: grassroots relationship building – starting at the lowest levels of an organization. 

Here’s an example to demonstrate what we mean.

A client of ours wanted to grow their network and secure new business with a previously out-of-reach industry connection. Leaders of the two companies had never met and shared very few, if any, mutual connections. Our mission was to leverage LinkedIn in a way that would allow our client to break into this new relationship by establishing a pool of shared connections. 

Our first step was to connect our client with lower-level employees within the target organization. On behalf of our client, we reached out to numerous employees within the company, asked them to connect and, one by one, began building a network of shared connections. Slowly we worked our way up the organization chart by adding more and more employees from this company to our client’s LinkedIn network.

By the time our client reached out to the other business leader asking to connect, we had already built up a large pool of mutual relationships. Before the other business leader connected with our client, they saw the dozens (or more) shared connections and referrals, which led them to readily accept our client’s invitation to meet. 

These baby steps were instrumental in securing the new connection – and ultimately led to a new business deal between the two organizations. 

Need a Networking Nudge? Call us at The Found Gen for Help

Networking has always been the bread and butter of building a business. The same rules apply when leveraging a social media platform like LinkedIn. With patience and the right strategy, you can grow your network – and your business.

To learn more about social media marketing and getting the most out of LinkedIn, contact our team at The Found Gen today.