You have a great business idea. You have an excellent product that perfectly meets the needs of your target audience. You have smart, ambitious employees. And you even have business systems that work together like cogs in a well-oiled machine.

Yet despite all these things going for you, your business may still not be taking off.

In actuality, you may be closer to success than you think. You may simply need to double down on your marketing efforts. It’s difficult to meet your sales quota if only a small number of people know about your business.

Here are 5 proven ideas to include in a marketing campaign:

1. Use explainer videos

People often prefer video to a well-written message. Explainer videos do particularly well if you want to introduce your business to people who have landed on your website. Using a video maker, you can create your own explainer video (and save $5,000 or more in professional fees). These types of short, animated videos will tell your brand story in an entertaining and memorable way.

2. Amplify your content marketing

The more free content you can provide about your business, the more people will see you as an authority in your niche. If you are selling information products, you will impress people with the quality of your information, and they will be more be willing to buy any books, courses, or other materials you have for sale.

One way to amplify your content is to crank up production. So, if you’re writing a blog post once a week, you could write two blog posts a week.

Another way to amplify your content is to repurpose your original content and distribute it through new media. For instance, you can repurpose the basic ideas in your weekly blog post into a video that you share on YouTube and break your big ideas into infographics that you share on social media.

And, of course, if you have the time and resources, there is no reason why you can’t both increase your production and repurpose your content, too.

3. Connect with more people

There are two ways to connect with more people to tell them about your business. One is to network online through social media marketing, while the other is to network offline by attending local business events. While the mediums are different, your purpose in both will be the same—to share information, build a social network, improve customer reach, and increase exposure for your brand.

4. Go to trade shows

If you have a wholesale or retail business, then you will benefit from tradeshows. While the ostensible reason to attend tradeshows is to sell more of your stuff and increase brand exposure, there are many more benefits to attending a trade show.

• First, you’ll find out about new, unique, and emerging trends in your industry.
• Second, you’ll be able to learn many new things from others in your industry.
• Third, you’ll have a chance to talk to your target audience face-to-face. This will give you a much deeper understanding of their wants, needs, and desires than is possible through surveys.

5. Hire a copywriter

Marketing goes beyond lead generation. You also have to convert prospects into customers. One of the most effective ways to do this is through copywriting. While, of course, you are free to dabble in learning copywriting skills yourself, you probably will not be as good as someone who focuses on writing copy all day and who has been doing it for a number of years. Although hiring a good copywriter is expensive, you will be able to make your money back… provided, of course, that you have a unique product and offer excellent customer service.

In the final analysis, marketing is both an art and a science. It’s an art because you need a lot of soft skills to be able to win people over. And it’s a science because you can measure everything you do and replicate the effects that other marketers have been able to achieve. In fact, marketing is such an indispensable part of your business that one could argue that all businesses are marketing businesses, differing only in what they sell.