5 Marketing Tips for Small Businesses
Running a small business might mean you aren’t quite ready to team up with a marketing agency yet, and that’s ok! But just because that might be further along on your journey, that doesn’t mean you should scrap the marketing tactics altogether. As a marketing business ourselves, we thought we could give you some pointers to help you in the meantime.
Tip 1: Know Your Audience
While this might seem like an obvious one, it is not as simple as it may first seem. We see so many businesses ready to grow their marketing strategy without a clear idea of who their strategy is targeting. It is important to remember that by targeting one audience, that doesn’t mean you are blocking out other potential customers that wish to engage with you. Realistically, very few businesses have the time, money, and resources to market to everybody. Therefore, determining your target audience and developing an effective strategy is a great way to ensure your budget is spent productively and you are always creating targeted content you know will convert.
Tip 2: Email Marketing
Don’t underestimate the power of a good promo email! Email marketing is a way to further communicate with your audience in a fun way. Don’t just sit back and wait for your customers to come to you, actively source them! Platforms such as Mailchimp offer free, user-friendly email marketing services. All you need to do is design your email and create an emailing list, and at no extra cost you can be continuously communicating and promoting your business to potential customers. Whether you are new to email marketing or want to further optimise what you are already doing, sign up for a free masterclass or jump on YouTube and familiarise yourself with some of the best ways to utilise free email marketing platforms.
Tip 3: Be Active on Social Media
No matter what product or services your business offers, chances are you audience is on social media. Once you have done research on your target market, you’ll know what platforms to find them on… so speak to them! Being active on social media does include regularly posting on your accounts, but it also includes engagement. Engage with your audience in the comments section and get chatting with other small businesses. If you see something you like that another business has done on their socials, share it on your story! By actively supporting local businesses on your accounts, you not only communicate your community values with your audience but are also likely to gain support from other small businesses yourself.
Tip 4: Create Informative Posts
If you want people to follow and engage with you on socials, you have to show them why you are valuable. A great way to do this is by creating informative posts and sharing them on your social media accounts. Informative posts build credibility for your brand, but they also have a high shareability and engagement rate. We all know the high value that earned media has over owned media. Creating content that is informative and sharable is an awesome way to get some earned media!
Tip 5: Automate Where Possible
There are only 24 hours in a day. Small businesses typically have less employees and therefore less time on their hands than other large organisations. So why waste your precious time doing the things a computer can do for you? Zapier is a great platform that can be used in multiple ways to improve communication between yourself and new leads. Mailchimp is another platform that allows you to set up automation features for email marketing. Look into these different platforms and save yourself some time.
Hopefully you find these tips handy and relevant to your business! If you are still confused feel free to flick us a message, marketing is what we do and we would love to help. Until then, we can wait to see your small business grow!