A few years ago, most small business owners had a big challenge when marketing their business. Since small businesses have a very limited marketing budget, it makes it hard for the marketing teams to create a solid marketing strategy. Because of this, most of the marketing activities were done on a trial and error basis.
However, the introduction of digital marketing has changed the game. Now, small business owners can easily create a marketing strategy, create a market presence, and attract informed customers. But, before you create a marketing strategy for your small business, it’s important to create a buyer persona. This gives you an idea of the customer you are targeting with your promotional materials.
Besides, creating a buyer persona gives you a variety of marketing tactics—and most of these tactics are no-cost or zero-cost. You can use different tactics at different phases of your business cycle, or use all of them at once when you start your business.
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How much should small businesses spend on marketing?
A study has revealed that most successful businesses invest around 5% – 12% of their revenue in marketing. However, without a good marketing plan, most small business owners concentrate on reactive tactics or channels, instead of integrated marketing, affiliated to a strategy that incorporates a marketing mix. Typically, this is measured using metrics for constant improvement, which allows marketing teams to deliver a tangible return on investment.
With that said, let’s look at a few tips that can help you build a solid marketing strategy for your small business.
Define your brand
All marketing strategies are unique. Therefore, you cannot share a marketing strategy with another business. Typically, when we talk of a brand, most people think of a business name. However, that’s not what brand means. How, how do you define your brand?
Creating a brand for your business is the key step when creating a marketing strategy. So, you will need to determine why you are in business in the first place. If customers cannot associate themselves with your business and why you are in business, then you don’t have a brand. Therefore, you need to create a brand story, showing why you started your business, and what it has taken you to reach where you are now. Please note that the tone, logo, and typography can help you to define your brand. However, the brand story carries most of the weight. It’s what keeps everything in place.
Market research
If you have a challenge in determining your target audience, conducting market research can help. One thing with market research is that it helps business owners to determine if they have a feasible service or product, the saturation of the market, the gaps that they can fill, as well as the ideal price point.
To conduct market research, you should check what people are saying on different social media platforms. If possible, join groups to find out the challenges that people are facing. Also, visit different forums like Reddit and Quora, and take note of the common questions asked by people. After that, put together these questions, and evaluate their commonalities. Now, the common questions will be the pain points of your customers. Also, you should consider researching more about your competitors in order to know their strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities.
Advertise your businesses
There is a reason why advertising is one of the leading industries in the entire world. Creating ads will help you to establish your first contact with clients. After that, you can start to build a relationship with your customers. However, you need to note that advertising will get your brand out there, and this is how you attract customers. Therefore, ensure you are ready for it.
Choose your marketing channels
Different marketing channels can help you to reach your target customers. Email marketing is one of the common digital marketing channels, in addition to social media platforms. If you are new to marketing, you should start with Facebook marketing, since it’s one of the easiest and effective marketing channels to focus on.
Besides, you will need to find out where most of your clients spend their time. At times, you might realize that they use their social media platforms to socialize and search for answers on Quora or Reddit. Besides, they might check Facebook every hour, but check their emails once or twice a week.
Don’t forget about lead generation
Lead generation can be very effective when it comes to marketing a small business. This process allows businesses to generate more traffic, which can lead to increased conversion rates. Today, there are several lead generation hints that you can apply when developing a sales funnel and nurturing targets until they convert to customers. The good thing with lead generation is that it’s ideal for any size or type of business.
Bottom Line
Now, since you have an idea about marketing for a small business, it’s time to take action. The best way to do this is to start with a 90-day marketing plan. It’s easier to create such a plan, and it will help you concentrate on your short-term goals, as well as the immediate needs of your business. A 90-day marketing strategy will help you focus on your target, and help you in creating a general master planning. Also, you should understand that marketing your small business is not a one-day job. You will need patience and consistency to see the results of marketing efforts.