Small Business Marketing Strategies

For small business owners and managers, retaining customers and driving new traffic to the company is everything. Growth is the goal, and to achieve it, you need smart and effective small business marketing strategies that make you stand out among the competition.

As you start rethinking your branding strategies and looking for areas where you can improve your online presence, you’ll find a wealth of knowledge to absorb. Check out these proven tactics and jump-start your marketing efforts.

Small Business Marketing Strategies for Your Website

Your website is where you interact with people the most. Returning customers will visit for updates, and new customers will learn about who you are as a company and what you have to offer. Content-driven marketing efforts can attract more people to your page and keep them invested in your products or services. Consider how blogging, website updates, and meta information can revamp your marketing efforts.

Increase Organic Traffic With Consistent Blogging

Blogging is an organic — and free — method for driving traffic to your business, and the key to an effective blog is consistency. Posting regularly shows potential and existing clients that you are open for business. Think of it as leaving the lights on so they know you are home. Other benefits of blogging include the following:

• Authority: Show customers you are knowledgeable in your field.
• Visibility: Get your business name out there without significant advertising expenses.
• Attraction: Use your blogs to bring people from your social media pages to your websites by sharing blog content.
• Brand Strengthening: Create blog content to showcase the characteristics you want to associate with your brand.

Blogs allow you to call customers to action and communicate what you offer, leading them to the exact page where they can access it.

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Update Your Web Pages

Regular updates to your web pages are among the most overlooked small business marketing strategies. Of course, a full redesign of your website every couple of years to keep up with trends is a good idea, but in the meantime, updating individual pages removes the risk of appearing outdated or boring. It also keeps your visitors informed about updates to your products or services and increases your brand exposure.

Substance — over outdated images and fluffy content — signals to consumers that you keep up with trends in your market. Improve your marketing funnel by guiding consumers through the buying process with brand transparency and open commitment to providing a valuable product or service. Your website should evolve with you and your business.

Use Metadata To Reach Your Target Audience

Using metadata right is the first step in your evolution. This is information about your brand embedded in your pages that you use to communicate with search engines and make your company more visible to the target audience. Common types of metadata include:

• Keywords and phrases link content to your website and improve your search results.
• Title tags describe the content of your web page and create a clickable descriptor for social media sharing.
• Meta descriptions are blurbs about the page to entice people to visit it.

With metadata, you can optimize your content to drive more of that free organic traffic to your website with every online search.

Small Business Marketing Tips for Social Media

In the Information Age, all small business marketing strategies should involve some variation of digital marketing connected to social media. Picture the traffic you can send to your website or brick-and-mortar store with regular, well-crafted social media posts. Then, check out these tips to help you get the most out of social media exposure and watch your pages take off.

Post Engaging Content for Your Followers

Social media engagement builds customer loyalty and increases sales without hefty advertising costs. The first step is to create engaging content that will make your followers want to interact. Use a consistent theme in the language and visuals to reflect your brand. For example, your content can be funny or serious, colorful or minimalistic, as long as it looks like you.

You can collaborate with other brands with a similar target audience to increase your social media presence. This is your opportunity to create a voice for your brand and communicate it in a space where you can reach the broadest audience.

Make Your Content Calendar a Priority

Getting organized is crucial to your social media marketing plan, and a content calendar is a great way to ensure your posts go live when and where you want. Here is significant information to include for each post:

• The social media platforms and account information for publication
• The date and time for the post to go live
• All copy, videos, and images to include in the post
• Links and instructions on how to incorporate them

Create rules for content to ensure balance. For example, one-third can contribute to personal relationships with your followers, another third to promote your business, and the final third to informative content about your industry.

Branding Strategies To Help Build Relationships

Your brand defines who you are to your customers. Once you establish your company voice, message, and image, you can use that template for everything from product descriptions and social media posts to in-store signage and print collateral.

Create Your Own Product Description Standards

Product descriptions are an opportunity often overlooked in small business marketing strategies. You can use metadata to boost the search engine performance for every product and make it as creative and unique as you want. Think about these questions as you create your template:

• What are the unique benefits your product offers?
• Who is the target audience for this product?
• When would your customer want to use this product?
• What are the basic features, such as care instructions and materials?

Now you can think about the format. Consumers love to quickly skim a product description and learn everything they need to know about it.

Establish Your Voice and Message

Your brand voice communicates your company’s personality and makes you recognizable. It appears in all content you use to address consumers, including web pages, blogs, social media posts, and emails. Therefore, an essential aspect of developing marketing strategies is to create your voice, use it to communicate your message, and make it the foundation for your brand standards.

How do you define your brand voice? Start by reviewing your company mission statement and how it reflects your values. Maybe your voice is confident but not condescending, fun but not silly, or informal but not messy. Find the adjectives that speak to who you are and let that guide your content creation.

Be Consistent With Your Visual Brand

You cannot discuss small business marketing tips without talking about consistency. When building a visual identity, you need a logo that fits your brand style and voice, colors to emphasize, and fonts to help generate brand recognition. Once you have all those, your mission is never to stray from them. When you have established a relationship with your target audience, your visual brand becomes a source of comfort that draws them back in.

Develop Your Small Business Marketing Strategies

Are you ready to develop small business marketing strategies to draw consumers and showcase your voice? One thing all these suggestions have in common is the power of online content. In every outreach effort, you have opportunities to enhance your content and drive more traffic to your company. Check out our powerful monthly blog plans, and find the one that meets your marketing goals.

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