Marketing for a small business is a dynamic field. It changes all the time, so business owners who want to get the most out of their marketing dollars must stay up to date. But getting started can be scary—it might feel like walking into Disney World without a map or plan.
But the question is, where do you start?
Should your small business start calling possible customers out of the blue? Or would it be better to try to break into the Clubhouse scene? You might be able to help yourself with SEO content writing. How about making a podcast? Oh, and right now, videos are the most popular thing on the internet. Why not start your own YouTube channel?
See how easy it is to get turned around? You can’t just throw darts at the marketing wheel to see what sticks unless you have a lot of money and time to waste. Instead, you should make reasonable estimates, tweak your plan, and carry it out perfectly.
It’s fine that you don’t have a big marketing team or budget. You can be successful with a small team and few resources, but you’ll need to get good at targeting and running campaigns.
This is easier to say than to do, but we’ve made it easier now with this guide to marketing for small businesses. This detailed guide will help you get your marketing program up and running. We’ll demonstrate:
- Which assets can’t be changed? (no matter what business you’re in)
- How to learn more about your customer base in depth
- The best ways for small businesses to market (and which ones to use)
- How to Make a Marketing Budget for Your Small Business?
- How to Get the Most Out of Your Marketing with Analytics?
How to advertise a small business to make more money
Over the past 100 years, marketing strategies have changed. When Henry Ford first started making cars, he said, “Any color they want, as long as it’s black.” Almost every product on the market today comes in every color of the rainbow and more.
It’s not because Ford was a bad businessman, because he wasn’t. But times change, cultures change, people’s habits change, and customers change too.
A few decades ago, you could tell people about your small business on the radio, in the newspaper, and in print. Instead, you’re probably on Instagram, Gmail, or Google right now. And in 2030, it could be something very different.
It depends on who your customers are. But no matter who your customers are or what business you’re in, your company will need a few marketing materials. So let’s start there before we move on to more specific plans.
Things you need to market your small business
Whether you own a cafe or a company that does quantum computing, your business needs a few key marketing tools. Let’s talk about each one below:
Website
A website is a must for every business. People can learn more about your business by going to your site. It’s a place where you can control traffic, but people can move around on their own. Your website belongs to you. Twitter can shut down accounts at any time, Amazon can take things off the site, and Gmail can send all your messages to the spam folder, but you have full control over your own domain. “The only two things you can have on the Internet are email lists and websites.” “Everything else is basically rented,” said Tobi Lutke, the CEO of Shopify.
Social media profiles
Google is an organization. Any company in the area. Check out the search results right away. We would guess that at least two of these first-page rankings are for pages on social networking sites. People now look for businesses on social media to see if they are credible and up-to-date.
Whether you plan to use Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn often or not, you should know how they work. If you want, you can also use Snapchat, TikTok, and Pinterest. At the very least, you should add your company’s logo and fill out your contact and “about” information.
Email Address
Email is a good way for customers to talk to businesses. For marketing, sales, and customer service, your business needs an email account. Put it on your website, social media accounts, and other marketing materials so that people can find you easily.
Business Page On Google
When you search for a business on Google Search or Google Maps, information about that business will show up at the top of your search results. This is an example of a Google Business Profile.
Google uses information from all over the Internet to automatically make company page listings. So, whether you like it or not, Google will probably show information about your business, whether it’s correct or not, if you don’t claim and verify ownership of your Google Firm Profile. So, keep and update this list. It’s usually the first thing customers see when they search for your business.
Find out what your customer wants first.
Marketing is not about what you want, but about what your customers want. Before you get too deep into marketing, you should find out more about the people you want to reach. Marketing is not about you; it is about your customers. It’s about what they want, need, worry about, and want to achieve. Ideas and methods for marketing are fun, but they are not the only way to connect with your customers.
For example, a food truck shouldn’t start streaming on Twitch if there aren’t any potential customers on the site. It might be fun and scratch that itch to be your own boss, but it won’t bring in as many customers as a local partnership or targeted SMS marketing.
Think about who your clients are and what they want. You could get very smart and do more formal qualitative and quantitative research, but this can be expensive. When you’re first starting out, keep things simple and cheap.
Here are a few low-cost ways to find out what people think:
Surveys: To discover more about your consumers, send out basic questionnaires.
Industry research: Search the Internet for the latest trends and information to learn more about your target audience through published studies and polls.
Talk with your clients: Talk to your customers (or people who might buy from you in the future) to find out what they like, dislike, and want.
Analytics: Use the analytics on your marketing platform to learn more about your audience by looking at open rates, click-through rates, and the demographics that are automatically filled in.
Here are the best ways to market a small business.
Now comes the fun part: choosing how to market your business. This is not a complete list, but it is a great place to start with the most tried-and-true channels and strategies. Don’t try to use all of them. You shouldn’t even try to do most of them. Instead, focus on getting better at one or two (or maybe even three) of the channels you think will help you connect with your audience the most.
Email Marketing
“Experts” have often said that Email would die out. Sorry, Zuckerberg, but Email is still the best way to reach people and help them, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to slow down any time soon. With more than 4 billion users, it’s clear that email is still the most popular way to use a digital identity around the world.
Think about this. How do you get into your bank account, payroll system, or even Facebook? With an email address that works. Email has a huge ROI of 122 percent and could go even higher. Sending a few thousand emails is cheap, but a single transaction from those emails could be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars. A lot of work goes into email marketing. Email might be the only marketing tool you need. It can be used to create conversion funnels, win-back campaigns, and grow an engaged audience.
Social media is a one-of-a-kind way to market that can be done for free or for money and has endless possibilities. You can work with local influencers, Livestream, run paid ads, or sell directly through platforms.
Choosing a plan is the hardest part because there are so many options. It will be hard to avoid shiny object syndrome, but if you want to do well in this medium, you’ll have to do so. Choose a few channels (it could be just one or two) to focus on and narrow your marketing strategies. You could, for instance, try ads on Twitter or Instagram influencers. Change how you do things and resist the urge to give up if things don’t go as planned. Most of the time, social media marketing takes a while to pay off.
Promotion of Content
With this simple method of marketing, it’s easy to get off track, so stay on track and follow your plan. For example, if you want to focus on search engine optimization (SEO), you should expect to spend at least nine months writing blogs, reorganizing your site, and building links.
Text (SMS) Marketing
SMS marketing, which is sometimes called “text message marketing,” is becoming one of the most popular ways to market. Nearly everyone has a phone, and almost half of the people in the world have a smartphone. Texting is a quick and easy way to get the attention of your customers, and it’s also one of the fastest ways to do so.
Shopify says that a whole sales cycle can be done through SMS in less than 30 seconds. Yes, you did read it right. 30 seconds Also, 90% of SMS marketing messages are read in less than 3 minutes. That went fast! Text message marketing has been used by countries all over the world for years, but it’s just starting to catch on in the U.S. There is still room for startups to be early(ish) adopters because not every company has jumped on board.
Outdoor Advertising (OOH)
Have you ever heard of Little America? It’s a made-up country. You probably haven’t driven all the way through Wyoming on I-80. But if you’ve been to Western Wyoming, you’ll already know everything there is to know about the small hotel and resort, even if you’ve never been there.
What’s going on? Because Little America’s billboard campaign has been going on for a long time and is the best example of successful out-of-home advertising. They have carefully put up big and small billboards along hundreds of miles of open road to advertise everything from hotels to ice cream cones. OOH advertising isn’t right for every business, but it’s a tried-and-true way to market a restaurant, motel, or store that relies on customers who come in person.
Setting a budget for marketing your small business
Your marketing budget will depend on your industry, the size of your business, and where it is in its growth. The US Small Business Administration (SBA) says that you should spend 7% to 8% of your income on marketing, even though there is no magic number. When you first start out, you’ll probably need to spend more on marketing to get your name out there and get your first customers. You won’t be able to pay for marketing with sales, so you’ll need a lot of money from your own pocket, a small business loan, or equity funding. Continue to make changes to the budget. Look at your financial records and data to see what is working and what isn’t.
For example, if increasing how much you spend on Facebook ads leads to a small but steady rise in income, you may just want to throw more money at the machine and see if it keeps growing. If, on the other hand, your text message marketing strategy isn’t bringing in many sales, you might decide to put your money into a different channel.
Remember that all marketing costs money. You can’t get something for nothing. Whether you use SEO or word-of-mouth marketing, there is still a cost. If it doesn’t cost money, it will definitely take a lot of time. Time is money, too.
Also, keep in mind that marketing is something that goes on all the time. You can turn it up or down, but you can never turn it off. Not during a recession, not during a worldwide epidemic, not during a lockdown, not ever.
When one door (channel) closes, another one opens. Write down your marketing plan and look at it often to make sure you’re getting the most for your money.
Analytics: How to get the most out of your marketing with data
Your data, which is a gold mine, is the center of everything you do for marketing. It tells you how to market, when, and how much to spend by telling you who, what, where, and how.
All decisions about how to market your small business should be based on data. If you want to start advertising on Instagram, make sure you can back it up with numbers and financial projections. If you want to spend more on email marketing, make sure you have facts to back up your decision. If you didn’t find statistics to back up a marketing move, you should think again. The good news is that the more marketing you do, the more information you gather, which helps you improve your future marketing efforts.
Summary
It may sound like a cliche, but getting started is the hardest part of marketing for a small business. Marketing is a very important field that is always changing and has a lot of options, interesting products, and money-wasting distractions, but it gets easier as you go.
Start small. You don’t have to spend or throw away thousands of dollars to see what works. Instead, study the people you want to reach, choose a few marketing channels, start a campaign, and track how well it does. If you observe positive outcomes, scale your success. If not, try a different marketing channel or plan.
You can’t avoid marketing (unless you’re Tesla, of course). There is too much real-world and online noise for you to be seen if you stay in the background. You need to put your business in the spotlight to get your clients’ attention and money.s
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