Want to grow your business?
Here are our top 10 small business marketing tips that you can use today to get results.
Whether you’ve been in business for decades or just starting out, whether you offer a product or a service, whether you’re looking to increase sales or attract new customers, every small business owner can benefit from a marketing plan.
In the past, this often meant paying for billboard, radio, or TV ads, but in recent years, the tide has shifted toward more digital marketing efforts.
As one of Orlando’s top digital marketing agencies, we thought it would be helpful to share our expertise. In this guide, we share our top 10 small business marketing tips to help you focus your efforts, grow your customer base, and increase sales.
1. Create Your Branding
There’s a chance you already did this (gold star for you!), but if you haven’t, take the time to figure out what your business’ brand is. Yes, before you launch a single marketing campaign.
Branding isn’t just for Fortune 500 companies. And it involves a lot more than your logo and a color palette. A strong brand shows potential customers who you are and what they can expect from working with you.
Are you quirky? Professional? Rebellious? Whatever your brand is, your marketing efforts should reflect it.
2. Figure Out Your Target Audience
Whether or not they’re aware of it, most small businesses have an “ideal customer”—a hypothetical individual that represents their target market.
How old are they? Where do they live? Are they married or single? Do they rent or own a home?
Answering questions like these will help you learn more about your target audience. And the more you learn, the better you can market to them.
(Hint: If you’ve been in business for a while, you can take a shortcut by looking at your existing customers.)
3. Build a Mobile-Friendly Site
Roughly half of all internet traffic goes through mobile devices. A responsive (i.e. mobile-friendly) website is flexible and dynamic, literally reshaping itself to be viewed on screens of every size.
And if a good user experience isn’t reason enough to switch, Google gives a little boost to responsive sites, so…win-win.
This might mean redesigning your website with a mobile-friendly template, which can be disheartening if you weren’t already budgeting for it. But the results are well worth the effort.
4. Write Quality Content
Content is just another word for information—from the words on your site to videos you post on YouTube. And in the world of digital marketing, content is king.
If you want to capture organic traffic (spoiler alert: you do), strong content marketing powered by good keyword research can work wonders.
Does it help if you have excellent writing skills? Sure. But if you’re the type of person who couldn’t formulate a sentence if your life depended on it, you can always hire a professional.
5. Focus On Local SEO
While organic SEO (search engine optimization) attracts new customers who are searching for your product or service, local SEO focuses on customers within a certain geographic area.
The good news is that getting started with local SEO is as simple as setting up accounts on Apple Business Connect and Google Business Profile.
Just by having a profile, you’ll be putting yourself toward the top of the search engine results page (SERP) when people search for your business.
This is something that every small business marketing strategy should include—it’s effective, it’s free, and only takes a little of your time.
6. Start a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Campaign
We’ve seen some great efforts come from organic and local SEO. But if you want to take things up a notch, a pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign gives you a little extra oomph.
Here’s how it works:
You create an ad and Google delivers it to people it has determined are interested in what you have to offer. When they click on your ad, you pay Google a set amount of money for being a good little virtual salesperson.
This isn’t just a great marketing tool, it pretty much funds the Google we know and love.
Say Hello, and Let's Get To Work Together
7. Consider Reputation Management
If you’re going to listen to any tip from any guide to small business marketing, let it be this one: interact with your online reviews.
Respond to as many reviews as you can (yes, even the negative ones!) to show off your customer service skills and show potential customers what it’s like to work with you. (Hey, look! Branding!)
If you need some extra help getting customers to leave reviews or removing SPAM reviews, find a digital marketing company that does reputation management.
8. Hop On Social Media
Your target audience is already on at least one social media platform, so why aren’t you?
Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are the most popular social media sites in 2023, but we recommend YouTube and TikTok, as both sites hand deliver your content to interested users without them having to follow you.
Plus, it doesn’t have to cost you any extra money to end up in front of someone’s eyeballs.
9. Send Out an Email Campaign
Got email addresses? Use ‘em!
A well-thought-out email marketing campaign brings in an average of $36 for every dollar spent, and it can be an incredibly useful way to remind customers that you’re still here.
Email campaigns can notify your customers about sales and new products, keep them updated about your industry, provide expert advice, and more.
10. Crunch the Numbers
Finally, no matter what type of small business marketing you choose, take the time to analyze the results.
If done right, SEO can definitely be worth the time and effort. But you can’t know whether you did it right without Analytics.
No small business owner wants to waste their time and money on marketing that isn’t working.
Your Digital Marketing Experts
Don’t feel bad if none of this comes naturally to you. As a small business owner, you’re an expert in your chosen field, not digital marketing.
But part of being a business owner is knowing who to surround yourself with so you see the most success.
If marketing has been a struggle, these small business marketing tips should help you get started. But if you still need a little extra help, give us a call!
Since 2009, Clarity Creative Group has guided small business owners just like you make (and reach) lofty goals. From web design to content marketing and beyond, we help execute digital marketing strategies that will take your business to new heights.
Give us a call today to get started.
