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7 Tips for Small Business Marketing

 

7 Tips for Small Business Marketing

Running a small business is hard enough. You’ve got orders to fill, customers to please and widgets to build before you can even worry about marketing. You don’t have the world’s biggest marketing budget so you need your efforts to have a major impact. This is a Catch-22 that any small business owner knows all too well. But you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Here are some tried and true methods to market your small business:

 

  1. Invest in branding

    • If there is one place you splurge, make it branding. All your marketing efforts will be more effective if you create the right image for your business with professional branding, even if it’s only a proper logo.
  2. Keep a fresh web presence

    • It only takes a few minutes to update the copy on your site, to post a quick blog post and to touch base with your social media audience. Create an editorial calendar and then take 10-15 minutes at the end of each day to wind down and post to the web.
  3. Decide on a purpose for your website

    • Of course you need a website, but why? If your answer is because everyone has one or because “you gotta be online nowadays” then you’ve got some thinking to do. Is your website going to be your main lead generation tool or will your customers purchase online from your company? Will it serve as your portfolio? There answer will depend on the nature of your business and your audience. Obviously a marketing company is going to have a very different set of goals for their website than a national online retailer, or from a small local florist.
  4. Build 3-5 target personas

    • It’s a lot easier to create a compelling message when you know who you’re talking to. Everyone who has taken a communications class has heard the adage “Know your audience.” Challenge yourself to take it a step further and map out exactly what makes your clients and prospect tick. What are their pain points. Every piece of content you create should originate from one of these personas.
  5. Audit your social media accounts weekly

    • If you have social media accounts, go to each one and make sure you have the following done:
      • An appropriate sized, high res image in all the profile/header/cover photo locations
      • Your website link on all profiles
      • It is ideal that your social media profiles will drive traffic to your website, but it may not. Your profiles have to make a good impression because it might be the only one you get. Make sure all the “about” and other informational sections on your profile are filled in. (HINT: Be consistent with your website.)
  6. Get to know local SEO

    • If your business is brick and mortar/location based, then local search can be your best friend. There are too many potential customers searching for your product or service, in your area, to ignore this tactic. It doesn’t take a lot to star making an impact. In terms of small business marketing, local search can be one of the best ROI’s you can find.
  7. Arm your customers with what they need to be brand ambassadors

    • Your biggest disadvantage is manpower. You don’t have the staff or resources. But if you enable your customers to become ambassadors for you, it’ll be a great way to compensate for your small staff. Ask for testimonials, ask them to share a funny story and great experience they’ve had with your company, give them incentive to review you on Yelp or to provide referrals.

What successes have you had with small business marketing? What challenges have you faced?

 

Milk Street Marketing offers small business packages that bundle many of our services into an affordable monthly payment. We offer an integrated, multi-channel marketing solution backed by a team of marketing professionals.

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