Small Business Marketing Solutions
To get free quotes from up to 4 UK based marketing agencies just fill out our simple form.
People who run small businesses must approach marketing with much more care than those who run larger businesses. A small business by definition has a smaller marketing budget, fewer resources of staff time and a much smaller margin between success and failure. While marketing is the only pro-active way to bring new business in the door it’s also a sure fire way to waste money when done badly. A small business, unlike a major brand, can’t afford to find itself at the sharp end of expensive marketing experiments.
A small business marketing solution should therefore be one that risks as little as possible while maximising the chances of bringing in new custom. This often means concentrating on tried and trusted techniques for the majority of marketing expenditure. But creativity and innovation don’t have to be abandoned altogether. New media and online marketing techniques make it possible to manage your spending in those areas very closely and precisely monitor how much business it brings in the door.
A good all round marketing strategy for a small business will mix elements of both old-school and new-school marketing techniques from the following toolbox in sensible measures:
Small Business Marketing Toolbox
The Old-School
The effectiveness of some marketing techniques has been proven over decades and should form the staple of any small business marketing solution. They include:
- Branding
Designing a logo and colour scheme is a vital part of defining your brand identity and will inform all the marketing activity you subsequently carry out. Think long term and don’t be afraid to invest – the aim is to have a brand that endures for many years and becomes trusted and loved by your customers.
- Direct Marketing
Contacting potential customers by telephone, email, mail or SMS allows you to tailor your message to individual customers, increasing the chances of customer response. The most important part of direct marketing is deciding who to contact – the list you work with should be up to date and the target audience relevant for your products or services. You don’t want to be accused of spamming or harassment.
The single most important piece of advice for any new business is to start building your own mailing list as soon as possible. Everyone who comes into contact with your company through the website, telephone, shop etc should be encouraged to leave their contact details. This marketing list then becomes your most valuable treasure – keep it up to date, backed-up and remove anyone who requests it. It can be used to inform customers and prospects of offers, new products and promotions time and time again and be the source of endless sales opportunities having cost almost nothing to acquire.
If you’re a consumer oriented business that operates within a small geographical area then leaflet drops are another tried and tested method of drumming up new business with relatively little expense – you don’t need a marketing list, envelopes, postage etc.
- Advertising
Again, locality might be crucial here. There’s no point wasting advertising expenditure on ads that primarily reach people who aren’t in your target audience. Newspaper, magazine, radio, TV and outdoor ads can all be commissioned and placed by a professional marketing agency. However, it is very difficult to track how much of your business is a direct effect of such advertising so ask all new customers how they found about you and keep a record. Advertising via online banner ads does provide accurate figures on the number of respondents but most people are pretty well trained at ignoring them.
- Website
Yes, websites have proven their worth to marketers the world over and are now considered old news. This is one online factor in which you should invest secure in the knowledge that you’ll regain your investment relatively quickly. Even if you’re not selling directly through your small business website it’s still an invaluable tool for informing people about your products and services and for getting sign-ups to your marketing list.
The New-School
Modern marketing techniques which take advantage of online and social media require less capital expenditure than the old-school methods listed above. They do however require expertise, skill and imagination and so are expensive to outsource. Luckily, they also allow you to track in detail how much new business is brought in via your website:
- Search Engine Marketing
This refers to the techniques used to make a website appear higher in search engine results pages. This can be done via search engine optimisation (SEO) where your website is manipulated in terms of content, links and structure to gain rankings in the natural results or via paid search (PPC) where you pay for clicks on your ads in the sponsored results. With both methods you can closely control how much you’re spending and see accurate figures on the numbers of people who have subsequently found your website and become customers or sign-ups.
- Social Media Marketing
Engaging with your target audience via Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms is becoming increasingly popular among small businesses because it’s something they can do themselves. The secret here is finding the balance between having enough to talk about to keep people interested and not Tweeting or updating so much that you turn people off. Used in conjunction with special offers, competitions, promotions and discounts which change frequently this can be a very successful way for a small business to get its message ‘out there’.
Small Business Marketing Strategies
Whatever line of product or services your business is involved with and whichever marketing methods you have the most appetite for, drawing up a clear and well thought out marketing strategy is vital for defining your goals, setting your budget, timetabling your actions and measuring your success.
A professional marketing company can provide the expertise and experience required to help devise and implement a successful marketing strategy for businesses of any size or type.
To get free quotes from up to 4 UK based marketing agencies just fill out our simple form.
