How to Create a Small Business Marketing Strategy
What you need to know when implementing a successful marketing strategy.
As a small business owner, you already know that you need a strong marketing plan — but you may not know how to go about creating an effective strategy. Should you stick with your tried-and-true marketing strategies, or mix it up with a new approach? How do you go about selecting and building a marketing strategy that works for your small business when there are dozens of options?
Here is what you need to know to create and implement a successful marketing strategy for your small business.
Experiment, Evaluate, and Scale Your Small Business Marketing Budget
Building a marketing strategy for a small business can feel overwhelming, especially when it comes to your online marketing options. There are many different methods and hundreds of articles all claiming to know the “most effective” strategy.
The truth is that your small business” best marketing strategy depends on your specific audience and your business model.
Before discussing how to choose the right strategy for your business, let’s look at six of the best small business marketing tools.
Email Marketing
Social Media
Social media marketing can help your small business reach thousands of customers and prospective customers. However, many small businesses marketers are overwhelmed by the number of different platforms. Should you be on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Twitter?
Rather than trying to be active on every platform, find one or two platforms where your customers are most active and focus there. Share informative, helpful posts related to your industry — not just product content meant to drive sales.
Content Marketing
PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
Referral Marketing
Event Marketing
Event marketing is an experience-based marketing strategy where brands promote their business through in-person or digital events such as classes, conferences, or happy hour events. Connecting with people in person or at events can create a stronger bond that can be leveraged to drive sales, increase brand trust, and build brand awareness.
Now that we’ve covered some core marketing strategies for small businesses, let’s talk about how to figure out which marketing strategy will be successful for your brand.
Create a marketing strategy for your small business.
Step 1: Where Do You Stand?
Step 2: Outline Your Ideal Target Audience
Who is your main audience? Whom do you want to target? Many small business owners assume their current audience is their ideal audience, which isn't always the case.
Start by asking what problem your product solves and then outline who is most likely to need that solution. Then compare that audience to your current customer base. You may find your current audience is not the best one for your product. Performing market research may provide additional insights into the identity of your ideal audience — and thus your target customers.
Step 3: What Budget and Resources are Available?
Small businesses do not have unlimited resources and must be careful about where they focus attention and resources. Spending $100,000 on PPC and a billboard campaign might bring in tons of customers, but it's unlikely to fit into a small business’s marketing budget.
Write down your monthly marketing budget and consider what resources you have available, such as a marketing platform. Include the amount of cash you can spend specifically on marketing initiatives and the internal resources you can rely on, such as an email list or an employee with social media marketing experience.
Step 4: Find the Lowest-Hanging Fruit
Now that you understand where you stand, whom you want to target, and your available resources, it is time to figure out which of the strategies from the first section are easiest to implement.
For example, if your company has a dedicated social media following, a target audience between the ages of 20 and 35, and a low monthly budget, then referral marketing may be the best choice. It requires little upfront investment and can magnify the power of a dedicated fan base. On the other hand, if you have a strong email list but haven’t been sending regular email campaigns, it may be time to invest in an email marketing course to make better use of your list.
Once you’ve settled on a strategy, outline your goals. Do you want to drive sales of a specific product, increase website traffic, or increase brand awareness? Goals should be specific, such as, “Increase sales of X product by 20% in the next three months.”
Step 5: Test Your Strategies
As a small business owner, you likely have a lot on your plate. It can be time-consuming to spend money and resources on a new marketing strategy, only to find out it isn’t as effective as you’d hoped.
Rather than getting frustrated, focus on testing different approaches. If your content marketing isn’t driving conversions, do some research to find out if the content is useful to your target audience and where they are in the buying process. If email marketing isn’t increasing sales-qualified leads (SQL), conduct A/B tests: try different subject lines, reword your call to action (CTA), or send emails at different times of the day.
Start small and grow.
The right small business marketing strategy can make a major difference in your small business's success. While there are many ways to go about marketing your products and services, the strategies above tend to be the most effective for small businesses. Start by choosing one or two strategies and then test to find out what works well for your company.
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