5 Tips for Successful Small Business Marketing
Marketing a small business is an entirely different experience from marketing a big company or corporation. For one, the budget is usually significantly less. This means fewer marketing experts on staff and less bandwidth with which to make things happen.
When you’re faced with these limitations, you need to put your creative brain to work and enable some marketing tactics that will improve your business overall. Here are five tips for successful small business marketing.
Publish High-Quality Content
Regardless of if you’re a small coffee shop in a rural town or an automotive shipping company, to successfully marketing a small business online, you need to put thought and care into what you produce. We no longer live in a world where creating custom graphics and advertisements is expensive or challenging; a small business can easily produce high-quality posts using free resources like Canva.
Not only does producing content give you something to share across your social media streams, but it also improves your SEO, meaning that when someone searches something relevant to your business on Google, you’re more likely to show up in their results.
Strategize Your Social Media
Social media management can seem like a full-time job, which is why many small businesses outsource this service to a VA. It’s important to post regularly to please the algorithm bots and to optimize your content so that it’s seen by more people. For example, an image will reach more people than a wordy post and a video will reach even more than an image.
When it comes to boosting posts on Facebook and paying for advertisements, be smart about your approach. Boost posts that matter and will ultimately lead to conversions. Use the ad guidelines to create something attention-grabbing that will stand out in a newsfeed.
Seek Out Speaking Opportunities
Having people from your business partake in speaking opportunities at other businesses or conferences not only markets your business but markets your people as authoritative voices in your field. Take the time to look at different events for which you can apply and put effort into making them worthwhile.
For example, if you run a fitness business targeted toward women, speaking at a women’s conference about self-care or body positivity is a great way to market your services both in person and throughout the event’s advertising and social media. If you’re in the tech industry, partaking in a webinar summit is a great way to share your knowledge.
Know When to Outsource
If you’re always struggling with your marketing efforts or need assistance with a new product launch, find some money in your budget to outsource to an expert. This could be a small marketing firm in your area or even a marketing student looking for some work experience. You may even want someone to come in and review all of your marketing strategies to get you on track, which leads us to the final tip.
Visit and Revisit Your Marketing Plan
To be successful, your business needs to have a well-crafted marketing plan in place. This plan will look at things such as:
- your company values and mission statement,
- your unique selling proposition,
- strengths and weaknesses,
- the competition,
- the market opportunities and challenges,
- target demographics,
- promotion strategy,
- brand voice and design elements, etc.
A marketing plan acts as the foundation of your strategies going forward. If you don’t have a marketing plan, you need to create one! If you have one and it doesn’t seem to be working, you need to revisit it and alter it to reflect the challenges you face.
To successfully market a small business, you need dedication, creativity, strategy, and knowledge. With hard work, you’ll be able to market your small business and knock your goals out of the park.
