Marketing advice for small businesses

We recently took part in answering a few questions on marketing for small business and wanted to share it with you all.

1. Which marketing is best for small businesses? (digital, email, content, direct mail, etc.)

This is a tough question to answer as a blanket statement, as each business have a different target audience with a preferred way to be contacted. That being said, in this day and age I do think that the best marketing for small business is digital marketing. Especially as digital has the lowest barrier to entry for most business owners. Most digital activities are free.

2. What is a business marketing strategy?
I like to think of a business marketing strategy as simply as possible, a marketing plan on how to contact your perfect customers. Many businesses spend hours building their perfect business plan but don’t include their marketing plan alongside this. Ultimately, marketing strategies for small businesses can be broken down to branding, activities, and contact points. 

3. What attracts customers in business?|

For a customer to be attracted into your business they will need to see the benefit for them. Whether that’s that they’ll get a tasty meal, or a service that they need. So make sure you tell them, what they will get out of it.

4. Why is marketing important for small businesses?

Marketing is a great way to find new customers, interact with current audiences and promote your products and services. It is so important for small businesses to use marketing to their advantage. If you’re not marketing yourself, it’s the difference between hoping someone will stumble upon you vs guiding them to you.

5. How do you market a small business?
Every business is different but the one thing that stays the same and is the best marketing tactic for all businesses is to talk to your audience. Talk directly to your customers as if it is a one on one conversation, and you’ll start to see the benefits. 

6. How do you create brand awareness for a new business/small business?

The first step I do for building brand awareness is to turn to social media. Create a strong profile on facebook, twitter or instagram and make sure you’re getting some content out. Then I would use my network of family, friends and of course customers to interact and ask them to share our content with their network. Sometimes you may have to incentivise them with a freebie! But the benefits of building some buzz around your brand are next level. 

7. Should a new/small business utilize all social media platforms, or pick and choose the ones that their industry performs the best on?

I always advise small businesses to pick their top 3 platforms, picking just one can mean you're missing your audience. One will likely perform best, but that just means you have a target for the other 2 to catch up to!

8. How do small businesses find their target audience?
Before you even begin the marketing process I recommend sitting down and writing out your ideal customer. From their age, gender, the neighbourhood they live in and even down to the minute details of where they shop. This helps you picture who you are speaking to when writing and creating content.

9. Is influencer marketing a viable marketing strategy for all small business types? If not, which industries benefit the most from it?

Influencer marketing is a great option but I would only recommend it to businesses that have a product or item to sell or business to consumer model. I would also recommend looking into micro influencers, with under 10k followers to get ‘more bang for your buck’. It’s a great tool to reach new audience!

10. How big of a part does budget play in coming up with and executing on a marketing strategy? 

Budget will always help you to go further, but putting money into your marketing without the knowledge on how to execute won’t get you very far. If you have the budget available I’d highly recommend spending it to hire a professional either to work within the business or an agency to work on your behalf.

11. How does a small business come up with their marketing budget?

I have some blanket advice for this question, if you’re looking into where to start with your marketing budget then 10% of projected revenue is a great place to begin. You can, of course, tweak this depending on the ROI

I hope this quick breakdown helps you find some useful info on what to do as a small business owner. Interested in more information? Our blog is chock full of advice for small businesses.