Whether you’re starting as a small consulting business, running a local consignment shop, or opening a diner, you are constantly looking for ways to attract business without breaking the bank. Remember the success of a small business has a lot to do with its marketing plan. Marketing is used to attract clients that a business needs to be afloat and productive. Marketing tactics are employed to assist a company in achieving its sales and branding objectives. Marketers use a range of strategies to attract the ideal clients to their company.
When business owners sit down to write their marketing plan, they need to consider what makes sense for their small business? What is working in the marketplace? And where should they start?
You’re a small business owner. You don’t have an endless marketing budget or an abundance of time you can spend doing the marketing yourself for that matter. You do, however, need to market your products or services to remain competitive. What do you do?
Fortunately, there is plenty of marketing approaches small business owners can adopt to successfully market their businesses without breaking the bank! Here are the best strategies, digital and off-line, to market your business while ultimately saving you money!
#1 Get Yourself a Website |
Don’t have a website yet? With 59 percent of the world’s population online, firms without a website are likely to be missing out on a significant portion of the market. You are not required to sell your things through your website. Making it an online portal where you can share information about your brand, client testimonials, prices, and skills can place your company in the limelight all over the world.
The fundamentals of gauging the success of your website are data and analytics, which include how many visitors it draws, how long they remain on your site, and how they find it.
#2 Get Savvy on Social Media |
It’s free and available for the taking. Having a presence on a few of the numerous social media networks might assist small businesses in developing consumer interactions. Posting engaging content on social media can help you reach a larger audience and advertise your services or products. Track the success of your social media marketing activities with Google Analytics.
#3 Try Google My Business |
Google My Business (GMB) is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies for small businesses. Listing a business on GMB is completely free and a simple job. For businesses particularly trying to target local clients, GMB is a powerful tool because it immediately gives your business visibility on Google.
#4 Don’t Forget Email Marketing |
Email is still one of the most effective ways to nurture leads. Small company email marketing often comprises emphasizing new items, special discounts, and other key business announcements, as well as encouraging your email list subscribers to visit your website. Email marketing data may be measured and used to ensure that future email campaigns are better refined and targeted.
#5 Write a Blog |
A blog, if written and updated on a regular basis, can help to raise brand awareness. It will also help in the improvement of your website’s search engine rankings, making it more likely that your company will be discovered online. Encourage readers to ask questions and respond to any comments to increase involvement.
#6 Attend Networking Events |
Despite the fact that we are living in the digital age, face-to-face networking is still quite important in the world of commercial marketing. Make an attempt to attend any relevant networking events in your area after conducting a quick search. You might wonder how you might assess the effectiveness of business networking. Of course, how many business cards have you distributed!
#7 Network Online |
Don’t have time to attend networking events in person? Instead, take part in online networking activities. Make an effort to be active on LinkedIn and related platforms, as it is the leader in professional social networking.
#8 Offer Consultation Services |
If your company provides professional services, why not make it easier for consumers to benefit from your knowledge by providing free consultations? This is a fantastic approach to raise brand recognition and establish yourself as an industry leader.
#9 Experiment with Facebook Advertising |
Join the two million small companies that use Facebook to advertise. For small businesses, Facebook advertising is a cost-effective and efficient approach to reach out to their target audiences. Advanced targeting, which allows you to target a specific audience based on factors like geography, gender, age, and interests, is another strength of Facebook advertising.
Create a report that evaluates and monitors a number of indicators, such as the click-through rate of the advertising, to determine the efficacy of Facebook ads.
#10 Try Google AdWords |
Google has an unrivalled potential to get your business in front of an almost infinite audience, with over 40,000 search requests made every second. In Google AdWords, your ad is given a quality score based on its relevancy, the landing page to which it directs traffic, and the click-through rate.
#11 Explore Coupon Deal Sites |
Using coupon deal sites to promote products or services is another marketing tactic for small enterprises with limited funds and time. Your business will gain mass exposure and may benefit from a flood of new consumers if you offer limited-time offers on coupon sites like Groupon.
#12 Host a Webinar |
Hosting a webinar – an online seminar — is a marketing approach that many companies ignore. Holding a webinar on a topic in which you are an expert can be an excellent approach to increase the number of people who join your email list. Encourage your webinar attendees to offer you feedback on the webinar or look at how many people subscribe to your emails, to discover how effective this online event was.
#13 Get Endorsed |
Getting others to recommend your products or services is a terrific free marketing strategy for small businesses. Even better, having your brand sponsored by a celebrity or well-known figure in your sector would generate a lot of buzz for your company.
#14 Brush up on Keyword Marketing |
The effectiveness of your internet marketing efforts depends on having a website that is keyword-optimized for your unique sector and business. Research the best keywords for your business, then work on incorporating them into your site’s content in a natural way to help it rank higher in the search engines.
#15 Create Landing Pages |
What is the definition of a landing page? It’s a crucial marketing strategy for small businesses, as it aids in raising awareness and interaction with specialised content. Landing pages encourage users to contribute data in exchange for information via various call-to-actions, which can result in a considerable rise in conversions.
#16 Win a Business Award |
There’s nothing quite like accrediting your company with an award to boost its legitimacy and appeal. Making the effort to enter a business award competition will provide you with a tremendous amount of free publicity in the first place, regardless of whether you win or lose. And winning will bring you a lot of extra attention – at least in your business.
#17 Get Active on YouTube |
YouTube is a gateway that no small business can afford to ignore, with 1.9 billion monthly subscribers. Making a short yet captivating film about your products or services may be a powerful tool for generating interest in your company. Determine the success of your YouTube video by counting the number of views it receives or, better yet, the number of questions it generates.
#18 Try Other Pay Per Click |
Of course, Google AdWords and Facebook Ads aren’t your only possibilities for this type of marketing. Microsoft advertising and Ignite Visibility are two other alternatives. Pay-per-click advertising isn’t a free marketing tool, but it may be very powerful. Simply choose your keywords, write an ad, and leave the rest to these networks.
#19 Do Charity Work |
Getting involved in charitable work is a marketing strategy you may have neglected. Being actively involved in charity activities, from visiting local charity events to donating monies to important organisations, is an excellent approach to increase your company’s corporate responsibility and credibility.
#20 Sponsor Local Sports Teams |
Sponsoring local sports teams may be more expensive than placing an ad in the newspaper, but it is an excellent PR strategy for small businesses. Every time the team plays, the name of your business will be displayed for all to see.
#21 Create a Company Newsletter |
Small businesses can use a well-written newsletter to create communication and connection with customers and prospects at a low cost. Keep your newsletter’s content useful, amusing, and digestible to ensure its success. When your newsletter is sent out to your subscribers, these procedures increase the likelihood that it will be clicked on, opened, and read.
#22 Contact the Media |
Reach out to journalists in your area to get local media attention for your brand. Having a single piece published in a newspaper on an inspiring or unique feature of your company can be a great approach to generate interest in your brand and, eventually, reach out to customers.
#23 Look after Existing Customers |
Remember to take care of your current customers in order to keep them loyal to your business. The occasional gift or free promotion will go a long way toward retaining your current consumer base.
#24 Offer Incentives to Staff |
Referrals are one of the most effective ways to get new clients, and your team is a wonderful place to get them. Treat your employees to vouchers, freebies, and other incentives related to your products and services so they may tell their friends and family about how amazing your firm is.
#25 Partner with Other Businesses |
Business success is based on collaboration. Bringing together knowledge and resources with other businesses might result in mutual marketing benefits for all parties involved. Simply pick an area of your business that matches another company’s products or services. Then collaborate with them on marketing projects that will benefit both of you.
Summing-up
Ready to ramp up your marketing efforts, but unsure of where to begin? Incorporate these 25 essential small business marketing strategies into the way you promote and operate your business and you’ll spend less time looking for solutions and have more time to devote to what you do best. If you need more help reach out to us and we will work with you to develop an annual marketing plan as per your budget and goals. We have designed a few digital marketing packages for our clients, you can select the package that best suits your need. All our packages are a balanced mix of various digital marketing strategies designed to give your business the needed boost. Contact our business solutions advisors today for more information.
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