5 Great Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses to Use

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As an entrepreneur, you’ll know you need to advertise your small business. It’s an effective way to increase your brand awareness and bring in more customers. In many ways, it can be vital. As much as you’ll know that, though, you’ll need to know which marketing strategies for small businesses you should use.

There are countless options out there, but not all of them will be effective. Thankfully, the choice doesn’t need to be as complicated as you could think.

More than a few marketing strategies stand out because of how much of an impact they’ll have. While they’ll take an investment, they’ll offer a decent return for your business. This should be the case no matter which industry you’re in.

It’s worth diving into some of the more effective of these.

What are Marketing Strategies? Why Use Them?
Before taking a look, it’s worth getting on the same page about what marketing strategies are and why they’re important for small businesses. These are comprehensive strategies designed to get your products or services in front of potential customers.

They’re technically different from marketing plans. A marketing plan is an outline of all the marketing strategies you’ll use for your small business.

Detailed marketing strategies offer more than a few benefits, which is why they’re always worth investing in. They’ll help you build a brand while encouraging more people to visit your premises or website. Through this, you should see:

1. Higher engagement with potential customers;
   
2. More visibility for your business;
   
3. An increase in sales to new and existing customers, and;
   
4. A greater profit margin in the near future.
   

To properly see these benefits, you’ll need to pick the right marketing strategies for your needs. This can often seem complicated, but it doesn’t need to be.

Some marketing strategies for small businesses stand out more than others. They’ll offer you greater results and a better return on investment. While the exact ones depend on your business and its needs, a few of them stand out.

Five of these could be more than worth it, as they’ll offer noticeable results. That’s especially true when you combine a few of them.

Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses: 5 Top Picks

1. Social Media Marketing
Social media is one of the more obvious marketing strategies for small businesses, but that doesn’t mean it should be overlooked. There’s a reason why almost every company is on social media. It lets them create relationships with customers, increase their brand awareness, and generate online sales. When done right, you can see this too.

The trick here is to make sure you’re using the social media platforms your target market is most active on. That way, you should see quite a bit of engagement. Don’t be overly promotional when you’re doing this, as it could be off-putting to your potential customers.

2. Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Pay-per-click advertising is exactly what it sounds like: ads for your small business will be put in front of potential customers, and you’ll pay for every click on the ad. This is one of the more affordable options to go with, as you’ll only be paying for results. It also gives you control over who your ads get placed in front of.

There are multiple platforms you can use for this, with each offering their pros and cons. Google Ads is one of the more popular, but Google Ads management can often feel a little overwhelming. Take the time to master this so you can start seeing sales.

3. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is relatively new, but it boasts the possibility of quite a few sales. It involves creating an affiliate program and letting people use their affiliate links to promote your products or services. Once a customer buys through this affiliate link, you make a sale, and the promoter gets a cut of the sale.

While this means you’ll make less of a profit through these sales, it could increase your overall revenue more than you’d think. It can also help you create a brand faster than you otherwise would have. Add in the fact you only pay when a sale’s made, and there’s nothing to worry about.

4. Email Marketing
Email marketing has been around for decades, and there’s a reason it’s still seen as an effective strategy today. It’s an affordable way to engage with your customers and nurture your relationship with them. It’s a cost-effective strategy to use once you’ve gotten your customers’ emails.

By using email marketing, you can generate more and more leads. If you’re selling online, then this is a great way to generate immediate and long-term sales. The trick is to make sure you go about it the right way. Just selling sales-y emails puts potential customers off. You’re better off building a relationship and slipping in occasional sales-oriented emails.

5. Content Marketing
Content marketing is one of the newer marketing strategies for small businesses, but it’s been offering some noticeable results. It involves creating content geared toward each part of the sales pipeline to help capture and capitalise on sales. It’s a time-intensive process, but it’s more than worth investing in.

The trick to this is creating - and advertising - content that relates to your business and that potential customers find valuable. This lets you create a brand, generate interest, and start seeing more and more sales going forward. You’ll engage with customers and build a name as an industry authority in the long-term.

Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses: Wrapping Up
There are countless marketing strategies for small businesses, but that doesn’t mean all of them are worth your time. Some of them could offer much better results than others. They’ll offer a much better return on investment than others, so it could be worth focusing on them. You’ll see this in multiple ways.

You’ll improve your brand awareness, bring in more customers, and generate more sales. It’ll even help make your small business more profitable. You’ve no reason not to invest in them as early as possible.