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The majority of small businesses have a very limited market spend available to them, which means they’re obliged to maximize their marketing budget to get the biggest return on investment. At the same time, it’s also necessary to successfully compete against much larger companies for the attention of your target audience, and this also has to be taken into account when developing your strategy.
That means the dilemma every small business marketer faces is to compete with larger companies while spending the least amount of money, and achieving the greatest reach while delivering your message. There’s no single strategy that can be adopted by small businesses to achieve all this, which means that more than likely, you’ll have to experiment with several different strategies to see which one gives you the greatest return.
The marketing strategies described below typically accomplish a lot more with a small budget, because they provide some of the best return on investment of all marketing strategies. Try out one or more of these, to see which one is the best fit for your company. It may be a combination of several of the strategies, so whatever works for you is the right answer.
One of the very best things you can do for your business is to get ranked with your Google My Business listing. This is especially important if you have a local business that targets clients in a specific area, and in this case, a good GMB listing can be the single best thing you can possibly do for your business. This is because a well-managed Google My Business listing will generally put you in the top few results on the local search results of Google.
By ranking your GMB listing among the top three, you’ll be able to pull in all kinds of qualified leads every single day.
There is no better vehicle for establishing credibility and visibility than using GMB, and there’s also no easier way to establish a good ranking. All you really have to do is make sure your profile is fully completed and verified. Once you do, focus on collecting Google My Business reviews, and keep your business information up-to-date. If you’re not sure where to go, check out our Ultimate Guide to Google My Business.
Facebook AdvertisingThere are approximately 2 million small businesses that currently advertise on Facebook because it’s a relatively inexpensive way of getting your message out to a target audience. Facebook is a platform that also excels at targeting specific audiences, based on their sex, age, location, general interests, and even their online behavior. Facebook also makes it very easy to create ads, since all you need to do is supply a good headline, an image, some descriptive copy, and a link.
Facebook Ads Manager is very easy to run and to test multiple ad sets on the platform, so you can find out what works and what doesn’t. This avoids the need for having any real technical expertise, and even new users can enjoy tremendous success using this approach. If you have a marketing campaign which requires a strong visual element to it, you may want to consider advertising on Instagram, since that is the platform noted for its strong visual appeal, and you can manage Instagram ads right within the Facebook Ads Manager as well. Looking for more information? Check out our recent Guide to Using Facebook for small businesses.
This kind of advertising allows small businesses to show ads to consumers, and each time one of them clicks on your ad content, you would pay the platform manager some amount. The appeal of this kind of advertising is that you don’t pay anything until someone does click on your ad, and that’s what makes it very cost-effective.
The way this works is you bid on keywords that would most likely be used by users searching for your products or services. Those bids, in tandem with the quality and relevance of your ad, would then be displayed to users in a certain ranked order. For many small businesses, this is the most effective way of reaching a number of users without spending a ton of money. If you’re running ads already, great. We offer a free account audit fill out the form below to stop wasting money and make your account more efficient.
It goes without saying you should make use of social media in your marketing strategy, given the fact that the potential for reaching an enormous number of people is there. However, the mistake made by a number of small businesses is to just make an assault on social media with no real strategy in mind. First of all, you should develop a budget for how much you’re willing to spend on social media marketing, then you can decide on which of the platforms you will deliver your message.
The majority of your resources are better spent on a platform where you know your target audience is active because it makes no sense to advertise on platforms where your users don’t have a strong presence. Then you should also decide how active you intend to be on each of those platforms because this is what really drives engagement with your users. The more you can interact with your target audience, the better idea you will have about their wants and needs, and about how you might improve your products or services.
Anyone who has been involved in marketing for any length of time is certainly aware of the statistics which show how effective video can be as a strategy. There is no doubt that consumers prefer to watch videos which will explain a product, as opposed to reading content which might do the same thing. If you can come up with a really compelling video, and keep it to a length which is in sync with the short attention span of viewers, this is something that you could use in literally all of your channels for advertising.
You could direct mail with video for an effective email broadcast. This is another area where you don’t need to invest a ton of money because even a simple production which satisfies a basic need of users can be very well received. For example, if you are delivering a step-by-step demonstration of how to use a product, this can be extremely relevant and useful.
A video of behind-the-scenes activities at your company might also be popular with your audience. Brainstorm with your marketing team to come up with ideas for really useful and interesting videos, and you will undoubtedly get a strong return on investment from them.
These are just a few ideas that you can take and apply in your business today! If you run into any challenges or aren’t quite sure where to start, we can help. Start the conversation today.
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Have a specific service in mind or looking to share more about your project goals? Fill out the form on this page and one of our sales specialist will get back to you ASAP.