Bootstrapping their way to success is nothing new for small businesses. Doing more with less is an art form for these companies’ marketing. Which is even more astounding when you consider that, according to The Manifest, a third of these businesses spend less than $10,000 on advertising each year. The difficulty for small business marketing professionals is to make their brand stand out, drive traffic, and establish client loyalty with a fraction of the money, time, and resources that larger competitors have.
Small businesses, fortunately, do not require large marketing budgets or agency support to succeed in marketing and help their firms stand out. Scrappy marketers at small businesses may pack a bigger punch where it counts most by focusing on the following five potent do-it-yourself marketing methods and arming themselves with the necessary tools.
Create a marketing plan.
A solid marketing strategy will incorporate a few key elements. It should begin by expressing the brand’s unique selling proposition as well as the advantages it provides to buyers. The next step should be to define the brand’s price and positioning strategy, which will help inform the rest of the process.
Marketers can now specify the distribution methods they will use, how they will manage client transactions, sales strategies, and advertising and promotional activities once these two core elements are in place. Small business promotional plans become significantly more targeted and cost-effective as a result of this procedure, and success becomes much easier to determine.
Look to social media, email, and video.
If you’re a small business marketer looking for a place to start, try social media and email, both of which are known for their low cost and big impact, as well as video, which may be economical with the appropriate tools. Seven out of ten small businesses use Facebook, half use Twitter and Instagram, and 64% use email marketing, demonstrating how cost-effective these channels can be.
The free features of social media networks can help small businesses get a lot of marketing mileage. They may communicate directly with their audiences, reply to questions, host online events, and keep customers informed about their products and services. It’s no surprise, then, that small businesses consider social media to be their best option for expanding brand awareness, sales, and revenue.
Cross-promote within and leverage the community.
Finding synergistic opportunities with other businesses or organizations can dramatically increase marketing efforts beyond what a single company can do. Cross-promotions often enable a small business to divide promotional costs, reach a wider audience, and tap into the knowledge of another organization.
Partnering with or sponsoring local groups or charitable initiatives is a good example of this. Customers appreciate firms that give back and provide opportunities for connection; thus, this usually develops an instant favorable brand association for a small business.
Improve the quality of your website.
Now that you’ve gotten people to visit your site, make sure there’s something for them to view and do. According to the research, responsiveness, speed, and rich, quality information are all important factors in persuading consumers to convert, whether it’s filling out a form, making a purchase, or moving on to another page.
A responsive website is something that every small business should consider. According to 72 percent of users, mobile-friendly sites are a must, and those who find non-mobile-optimized pages are five times more likely to exit the site altogether.
Re-purpose, re-purpose, re-purpose
Great content necessitates a financial, time, and skill investment. Find ways to repurpose, recycle, and rethink materials to get the most out of your investment. A blog post, for example, can be turned into an infographic. A single infographic can be transformed into a slew of social media photos or a motion graphic video.
This type of repurposing can be done DIY by a small (or even one-person) team when a small firm has access to quick and easy tools like those in Adobe Creative Cloud (including Spark, Premiere Rush, and InDesign), avoiding the need to hire more expensive contractors or agencies.
Summary
Business success is based on collaboration. Bringing together knowledge and resources with other businesses might result in mutual marketing benefits for all parties involved. Simply pick an area of your business that matches another company’s products or services. Then collaborate with them on marketing projects that will benefit both of you.
References
- Jones, P., Maas, G., Kraus, S., & Reason, L. L. (2021). An exploration of the role and contribution of entrepreneurship centers in UK higher education institutions. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development.
- Mazzarol, T., & Reboud, S. (2020). Innovation in small firms In Entrepreneurship and Innovation (pp. 131–164),. Springer, Singapore.
- Pueyo, A., Carreras, M., & Ngoo, G. (2020). Exploring the linkages between energy, gender, and enterprise: Evidence from Tanzania. World Development, 128, 104840.
