Every penny counts when you begin marketing your small business. Reports show that most small businesses spend less than $10,000 per year in ad costs.
If you don’t have a solid plan, your marketing strategy is going to fail. Follow the seven small business marketing tips below to get started on the right path.
Table of Contents
1. Build a Website
There are only so many hours in the day for you and your team to spend talking to potential customers. Many people spend their evening hours looking for businesses to work with. Without a website, you won’t be able to reach any of these people.
A website acts as a 24/7 salesperson for your business. Once you invest in your design, it only costs a few dollars per month to keep it running.
You can get your design by investing in a theme or working with a designer. A website theme will get you up and running in no-time but will leave you with a web design similar to others on the internet. A designer can examine your business and develop a website design that works great for converting visitors to new customers.
Once your design is up, you can use search engine optimization to get new visitors. You’ll need to create content for your site if you wish to do this. Figure out what questions people have about your industry and create blog posts that answer those questions.
2. Get Social
You need to find customers where they hang out. These days, that place is on social media.
Reports show that the average person now spends 144 minutes per day browsing on social media websites. You can use the time people spend on these sites to build your business presence and fan base.
When you build a fan base on social media, you can reach people at any time by creating a new post. This means your goal is to create compelling content that will get people to like your page.
You can kickstart this process by using social media marketing ads. Target people based on demographics and create social media posts that appeal directly to these people. You can use the social media ad networks to boost these posts and show them to everyone in your demographic.
Once you have a decent following, you can start promoting your services. If you spent enough time building trust, people would have no problem trusting you with their business. Check out this resource to learn more about building a marketing strategy for your social media presence.
3. Use Email
The last thing you want to do in a digital marketing strategy is to keep paying for the same customers repeatedly. Without a way to store customer information, that’s what will happen.
An email list will help you reach out to people who have seen your business in the past. You can build your list by using your website to collect emails or enter emails yourself.
If you want to make the most of your email list, try not to spam your customers with nothing but promotional emails. Spend the time to create engaging content that will benefit your subscribers. You’ll only lose subscribers if you annoy them with too many sales emails.
Doing this will help build trust in your business and will keep people opening your mail. With this trust, people won’t mind if a few of your newsletters are promotional now and again.
4. Network With Other Businesses
It’s unlikely that you’re the only business in your industry. Many other business owners out there have gone through what you’re going through and can help. It’s wise to reach out to those people.
Head to the locations that other business owners hang out and start forming relationships with the people there. The goal of these relationships should be a win-win situation. Both parties should have something to gain from working together.
The first set of relationships to build is with those businesses that can use your products and services. Try to understand what problems these people have in their business and offer a solution to those problems.
The other people to reach out to are business owners that offer the same products as you. You might be competitors, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be friendly. Many people are often willing to provide advice for others that are coming up in the business world.
5. Set Up Google My Business
Google is one of the primary ways people find local businesses these days. They search for a local service and get a map that has every company in their proximity. The question is, will your business be on this list?
If you own a local business, you need to have a Google My Business account to show up in local search results. You’ll need to reach out to Google for this to happen.
Google will send a postcard with a confirmation code on it after you set up. Once you provide this PIN code, you can activate your Google My Business account. At this point, you can set up your operating hours, pictures, and any other information you want searchers to see.
Once you get your account set up, you can start taking advantage of reviews. People who browse local results want to do business with companies that show results. Ask your current customers to leave a review, so you have a better presence in local results.
Use These Small Business Marketing Tips for Success
You can’t get new customers if you don’t have a comprehensive marketing strategy. Use the small business marketing tips above to create a strategy to get your business in front of the right people. A little planning will help stop you from wasting money and resources on marketing channels that won’t produce results.
Are you looking for more business marketing tips? Head back to our blog to learn more.
