Marketing strategies for small business is more important today than ever before. In 2018, it has been reported that there are 30.2 million small business in the United States. Running a small business is a very rewarding experience but also comes with its many challenges. One of the biggest challenges that small businesses face is developing strategies for marketing. Most small business owners are in industries outside of marketing & media but are expected to perform many different roles which include the marketing tasks. Because of their limited knowledge or experience, small business owners develop subpar marketing strategies for their small business or do not develop them at all because of the fear of wasting valuable resources. We have been fortunate enough to be able to talk & work with many small business owners who are smart enough to know when they need help. In this article we’ll showcase some, but not all small business marketing strategies.
Challenges To Marketing Strategies For Small Business
Before we discuss strategy let’s focus on the challenges that small businesses face that work against them and their marketing efforts.
Time:
For most small business owners there never seems to be enough time in the workday. Most of the time is focused on completing services or working on products and there isn’t much time left to come up with a marketing strategy or monitor for optimization let alone the time it takes to self educate on the platforms. Half of small businesses go out of business in a short period of time so it’s critical that results happen quickly. The time savings benefit alone of hiring a digital marketing agency should be enough for a small business owner to hand those responsibilities over. Yes, we know resources are limited and hiring an agency costs money but time is of the essence and time is the most valuable resource small businesses.
Lack of Knowledge:
You know what you know and you don’t what you don’t. Most small businesses do not have the manpower or the budget to hire an in-house marketing person. This means that in most cases the owner or another employee takes on the challenge of developing a small business strategy that lacks the knowledge to do so. It’s important to remember that all things business happen within a competitive environment. If something as important of how a business reaches new customers is vastly inferior to their competitors, that business will always be at a disadvantage.
Budget:
Lack of capital is the top challenge for 33% of small businesses. Small business marketing strategies need to cognizant of budget constraints and need to be flexible to adjust as time passes. Knowing how to develop a budget or how much is a healthy budget is sometimes mismanaged by non-professional marketers as well. Our team of digital marketing consultants conduct proper research that should determine optimal budgets that fit within proposed small business marketing strategies.
Established Competitors:
Sometimes in the small business world it feels like it’s David vs. Goliath. In some cases that is true but in most situations small businesses can find ways to compete. Without the knowledge of how to compete, most marketing efforts will result in either lack luster results or completely wasted ad spend. Optimized digital marketing strategies and solutions allow small businesses to compete again more established competitors or larger businesses.
Infrastructure
What comes first, the chicken or the egg? Most small businesses wrestle with growth first then build the infrastructure or build the infrastructure then attempt to grow. Manpower is one of the hardest and priciest assets to obtain in the small business environment. It needs to be thoughtfully planned and considered when developing a small business marketing strategy. Our advice is never take on more than you can handle because what good is it to spend marketing dollars on products or services that you can’t deliver on.
We’ve Got The Right Small Business Marketing Strategies
Have no fear, the right small business marketing strategies are here! Below we’ve listed only some of the many small business marketing strategies that are used in all different types of industries to earn new customers.
1. Get In The Game & Compete For In-Market Buyers
There are over 63,000 Google searches per second. These are users who are asking Google questions and expecting answers. How valuable do you think it is to appear in either of the top 3 positions for searches of users who are trying to hire or purchase services or products in your industry? The answer is very valuable. We consider competing to display in the top 3 positions with PPC advertising for qualified searches to earn valuable clicks the fastest sales cycle because of implied purchase intent. Implementing PPC marketing strategies for small businesses give way to highly convert-able web traffic that produces quick cash flow, which as you know by know is critical to small business success.
Rewards: In-market audience web traffic, highly convertible, easily optimized, faster sales cycles, better cash flow
Risks: Reaching limited audience, need to have strong landing pages, short term marketing gains
2. Play The Long Game (and short)
This small business marketing strategy involves PPC marketing from above (the short) and search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is a long term solution that is built over time that improves organic (free) rankings of a business’s domain in Google’s search results. This is an optimal strategy for small businesses because this strategy focuses on producing quicker cash flow with PPC in-market audiences and building long term value of increasing organic (free) search results over time. The end goal of this plan is to eventually eliminate PPC marketing efforts once SEO has eclipsed the PPC efforts.
Rewards: Complete search engine solution, long term sustainable results, in-market audience
Risks: SEO investment isn’t realized in the short term
3. Going Back To The Well
Who better to sell to than the people who already love your business, it’s your customers! Depending on your industry, it can be costly with both time and money to acquire new customers. Let’s cut most of that out and focus on a small business marketing strategy that increases the value per customer and lets organic word of mouth spread. Email marketing is a great tool for this strategy. Creating compelling add-on product or services and putting them into stunning email campaigns gives small businesses additional ways to sell and further strengthen their relationship with their customers. We recommend Mailchimp as a great email marketing platform.
Rewards: Strengthen relationships with current clients, improved inventory management, less expensive marketing channel, higher conversion rates
Risks: Ignoring proactive management of new client acquisition hinders company growth
4. Create a Loyal Following
Build a brand and a following with social media marketing. This strategy takes time and an excellent content creator but once this small business marketing strategy has some momentum, it can be an unstoppable force of good for your bottom line. Nothing is more powerful in the marketing world than your customers selling your product for you and that is the goal of social media marketing. When you loyal following engages with your content (likes, shares, & comments) they are introducing your brand to their friends and followers which you can guess, is great for the business! Today Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter are popular social media platforms to grow a following.
Rewards: Excellent source for brand building, let your customers sell for you, build a loyal following
Risks: Very hard to do so therefore there is a low chance of success, user often change social media platforms over time and your reach will diminish, companies leave themselves open to critic and the possibility of negative viral mistakes
Now It’s Time To Implement Your Small Business Strategy
Hopefully after reading this article the juices are now flowing through your brain on how to develop a small business marketing strategy. As always we want to be a resource to help make your business the best it can be. Lower you risk and achieve results faster with the help of our digital marketing consultants. We think that you’ll like the results we deliver.
