Gone are those days when print media, TV commercials, and large billboards used to rule the marketing industry. In this technology-driven world, small business marketing strategies have completely changed.
Like every other thing, business owners are also changing their ways of marketing from physical to digital. Internet and social media have already entered the mainstream of marketing and become popular in a concise time.
So, if you are also a small business owner looking for some effective ways to grow your business, this article can help you. Here we have discussed 10 essential things to include in your small business marketing strategies to keep up with the new trends in marketing.
Top 10 Small Business Marketing Strategies
1. Business Website
A website is the foundation of your digital presence and the face of your business on the internet. With an effective website, you can provide all the necessary information about your business anytime without actually interacting with your customers.
Your fully-working website shows professionalism, builds credibility, and creates trust with your customer. Moreover, you can also analyze your customers and their insights by integrating tools like Google Analytics. It will help you set your further strategies to convert visitors into customers.
Here is the business website of a company that provides fire & water damage restoration services in Indianapolis. You can see how they have mentioned all the services they offer along with the suitable details to contact them.
While creating a website for your business you need to make sure it is responsive for all types of devices. And most importantly, the content on your website must be simple, engaging, and readable to your visitors. Moreover, the loading time for your website should be minimum so that it doesn’t make visitors wait for a long time.
2. Search Engine Optimization
SEO or search engine optimization is an essential thing that you must include in your small business marketing strategies.
Once you have created your full-working website, the next task is to bring it to the top of SERP (Search Engine Result Pages) when someone searches for the product or services that you offer. One can do this with effective SEO techniques.
You can see the organic results on Google after searching best carpet cleaning services in London.
You can also rank at the top with appropriate SEO practices. Using highly searched keywords, user intent-based content, engaging meta titles and descriptions, and a suitable linking strategy is some of the tips to improve SEO ranking.
3. Branding
People often think that words like “brand” or “branding” are only for large-scale and renowned businesses. But even though you run a small business, you must include branding in your small business marketing strategies.
Branding is nothing but a method of giving your business a unique identity that will help you stand out from your competitors. This is done with your logo, websites, fonts, color pallet, and theme.
Using these features, you can create a strong brand and use it on your website, social media, and all the other marketing campaigns, which will help your customers to recognize your products or services easily.
4. Social Media Marketing
A strong social media presence is essential to stand out and create your digital identity. In today’s age, social media is a powerful marketing tool and you can’t miss the opportunity to bring your business in front of a vast audience.
Using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc you can engage your targeted audience that can be your customers in the future. Moreover, these social media platforms have business account feature that gives you leverage to analyze the performance.
In addition, social media has several other tools that help you create a strong and engaging online presence which is a must for every business nowadays. Suppose you offer services related to water damage restoration in Carmel. Using social media you can engage your audience by creating awareness about water damage.
5. Email Marketing
Email marketing offers the highest ROI (Return on Investment) of all the other types of marketing. Stats show you are likely to get $36 for every $1 you send on email marketing.
Email marketing is helpful in lead generation and leads nurturing. Using appropriate email newsletters you can connect with new people and maintain long-term relations with your former clients.
Considering the example of carpet cleaning services in London, Along with the new offers, discounts, and sales, the services provider can share helpful blogs, how-to guides, and similar informative content related to carpet cleaning hacks through emails to provide value to your readers.
With email automation, you don’t even have to take much effort. Several tools help you send emails in bulk, send customized replies, and track the performance of your email marketing campaigns. Try sending customized and relatable emails as there are several benefits of email personalization.
6. Paid Advertising
Another essential thing that you shouldn’t forget to include in your Small Business Marketing Strategies is Paid Advertising. Paid Ads which are also known as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) are one of the most commonly used methods for promoting a business online. With the help of effective PPC campaigns, you can target a particular group of audience that ensures you get a genuine lead or customer.
By running paid ads, you will be on the top of SERP when someone searches for products or services that you offer. Moreover, you will only have to pay when someone clicks on your ad. This will save you cost that you can utilize in other business operations.
You can see how a PPC ad appears on web results. Apart from the web, you can also run ads on high-traffic websites, youtube, social media, and app stores.
7. Local Listing Sites
46% of Google searches are done to find local information. Whereas 97% of the users search online to find a local business. This means you need to focus on your local customers, especially if you offer services.
Local listing sites can help you to do so. People often use online business listing sites like Google Maps, Yelp, Chamber of commerce, Angie, etc. Listing your business on such local listing sites will help you get more customers.
As shown in the above example after searching for contracts you will see the list of popular remodeling contractors in Carmel, IN along with the website, address, and other contact details.
8. Online Review Management
Reviews are one of the crucial factors that can make or break your business. According to statistics, 87% of customers don’t consider businesses with poor reviews. This makes it essential for your business to maintain a good online reputation.
Suppose you are looking for carpet cleaning in London, and you find two companies that offer services with the same pricing. You can check their quality with the help of reviews.
So as a business owner you must ask about the reviews and testimonials of your products or services from your customers. You can take these reviews on different local listing sites and can also showcase them on your website.
9. Influencer Marketing
Influencers are one of the best ways to promote your business in this modern age. People nowadays are highly influenced by popular personalities with huge followers on different social media platforms.
Moreover, nano and micro-influencers promote your products or services in an engaging and relatable way, unlike branded posts. Such relatable posts create trust and chances of people purchasing from your business increase.
You can collaborate with local influencers and promote your business on social media platforms where your audience is most active. Getting promoted by an influencer will also improve your online reputation and brand awareness.
10. CRM Software
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management Software it is used to store and analyze the data of your previous clients. It also contains the data of your potential clients that can be helpful for you in the future.
A CRM might be an expensive thing to purchase for a small business, but it will surely give a fair return on investment if you utilize it effectively. However, you can also use some free CRM software initially. They will come with limited features but you upgrade them once you find it worth investing.
By storing your client’s essential information like name, contact details, email, and services availed, you can reconnect them regarding offers, discounts, and even festival wishes. So as per its name, you can maintain a good customer relationship.
Summing Up
So there were the top 10 things that you must include in your small business marketing strategies. It is challenging for small businesses to keep up with the high competition. But with effective marketing strategies, you can certainly do that.
You must have a responsive business website to establish a strong digital presence. SEO will help you in ranking at the top of SERP when anyone searches for your business-related queries. Also, branding will ensure your products or services stand out from the competition and that customers recognize them easily.
Moreover, you can’t miss the opportunity of utilizing the most powerful tools of the time, social media and email. They will help you keep your audience engaged with your business. Paid ad is another effective way of promoting your business to your targeted audience.
Apart from that, take advantage of free tools like local listing sites, and review portals. And lastly, consider investing in influencer marketing and CRM. Influencer marketing will promote your business in front of a large group of audience. CRM will help you manage strong relations with your customer that will give benefits in the future.
