Small business marketing: An introductory overview

Finding the most cost-effective marketing strategies is critical for small businesses. That’s because small local businesses don’t have the same capabilities as bigger businesses.

Different marketing efforts can help you achieve your business goals. However, some of the most effective online marketing strategies are online. Your small business can become an endless success with the right knowledge and guidance!

First, you need to understand that digital marketing is more than putting up a website and waiting for people to find you.

This guide to small business marketing will teach you all about internet marketing, what it entails and how to use it the correct way. In addition, we’ll go over specific tactics that can help your small business grab online market share.

• Small business marketing via inbound approaches
• Small business marketing using videos
• Email marketing for small businesses
• Social media marketing for small businesses

Section 1

Small business marketing strategy via inbound approaches

Would you prefer for your consumers to be looking for you rather than the other way around? Look no further than a solid inbound marketing strategy. This section goes through the value of inbound marketing for small businesses and the fundamentals of getting started. Then, we show you how to pick the appropriate channels for your company by discussing them here.

Let’s look at how to attract your ideal customer to your website. Many large and small organizations utilize it, and it can also work for you.

What is inbound marketing?

To us, a simple definition is to consider outbound marketing as “push” marketing and inbound marketing as “pull.” You attract customers by offering value-added material that assists them in achieving their objectives rather than with intrusive advertising or unethical sales practices.

To make things easy to understand, let’s take a look at three separate aspects of this situation:

• Organic Content
• Engage
• Build Trust

You attract prospects and new customers to your website and blog through helpful and relevant content.

You begin engaging with them by utilizing conversational technologies like email and chat to provide them with future value.

Finally, you may build trust with them by acting as a sympathetic counselor and specialist.

The inbound approach isn’t limited to marketing. The same process and mentality may be used in sales and service.

So, how do you go about doing inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing: The fundamentals to get started

There have been numerous books and courses on inbound marketing, so we won’t cover the subject thoroughly. Rather, we’ll give you a few key things to consider so you can get started taking action. Of course, you may always return and learn more about the process if you have trouble getting your wheels on the ground.

So what are the fundamental steps for getting started?

• First, define your ideal audience, often known as your target market. Who do you want to sell to?
• Second, figure out which channels you can utilize to attract, engage, and build trust. Where do the consumers gather, and how do they interact?
• Finally, begin developing content and messages that will be used to attract, engage, and resonate with consumers. Make certain you have analytics in place because you’ll need to modify your strategy based on the findings.

Let’s look at each of these in detail.

Learn your personas and target markets

You may know your target market based on your business and situation. If not, it’s always rewarding to do this work again and gain more insight into your clients. The more you understand your consumer, the better you’ll be at designing your messaging and strategy.

Once you define your ideal audience, begin to develop personas. A persona is a fictitious representation of your ideal consumer. They’ll be an amalgamation of several customers or consumers that best represent your target market.

It would help split the difference between accuracy and utility. In other terms, you should gather enough data and information to create a buyer persona that is largely accurate in the real world. Still, you shouldn’t collect too much data or make it overly complicated.

How do you collect data to inform your buyer persona? There are several ways, some easier, some harder, depending on the stage of your company:

• Customer interviews (phone or in-person)
• User testing
• Digital analytics
• Live chat transcripts and intelligence via service and sales teams
• Surveys

You’ll need to answer fundamental questions about your ideal consumer, such as:

• What motivates them?
• Why would they purchase from you instead of someone else?
• Who do they look for when they’re making decisions? Who influences them?
• How will your product make their life easier?
• Can they be grouped for a specific message or more individualized messaging?
• Where do they hang out? How can you reach them?
• What type of language do they use?

All of these things will help you choose channels and craft messaging.

Just don’t make up a phony buyer persona with a cute name to do the job. Unless you’re selling paint or used cars, it’s probably irrelevant what your buyer persona’s favorite color of the car is. Instead, stick to the important and knowable aspects of the situation.

Map out your channels and tactics

After establishing a target market and buyer persona, you can research additional channels. The number of inbound marketing channels is limited:

• Blogging
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Social
• Facebook Ads
• Branding
• Referral
• Virality

Even if you try your hardest, some channels will not work for your business. For example, viral marketing wouldn’t make sense if you sold dish soap.

On the other hand, some channels may work but will require a significant amount of effort and risk. For example, referral marketing may work well for you, but it will involve a lot of time on the phone and relationship building with your customers.

Use this strategy to determine your greatest sources: “How does a client buy this sort of product?”

In many cases, it’s when customers need someone right away. SEO and search engine ads are perfect for capturing this type of demand.

Some products are naturally viral. So just optimize the viral components and go. For example, Dropbox and Basecamp grew by getting the early adopters to bring in more users.

Content marketing for B2B software firms, for example, is a wonderful fit. However, due to the fact that these items require a little bit of upfront training, their target consumers are used to learning about them through blogs, webinars, and ebooks. In any case, consider it and talk about it with your coworkers before diving in. Don’t join a channel simply because your competitors have or because it is “where the cool people are hanging out.”

You know your company, market, and product better than anyone else. So don’t make decisions just because everyone else is doing it.

Create content and implement the plan

After you’ve decided what channels and tactics to use, it’s time to create content.

Start with a strategy document covering everything the business needs to make the content as effective as possible. This will include topics, themes, and messaging strategies.

Let’s say, for example, your business wants to use blogging and a good SEO strategy as your inbound channel. Most of the time, this is where these types of efforts start. It’s a controlled channel, and you can usually compete with huge companies.

So, where do you want to go? What is your blog’s focus?

While there are many answers to this question, you can use the Pillar + Cluster approach.

In simple terms, your “pillar content” refers to the major topic you want to rank for, while “cluster content” refers to related material. Hyperlinking pages together implies that Google believes they’re connected.

Let’s assume your major topic is “personalization.” For this, you might build a pillar page called “Personalization for Your Business.”

You may subsequently utilize a variety of cluster blog entries to complement the pillar page. These could be on subjects such as:

• Data collection for personalization
• Free tools that can help you with personalization
• Segmentation by behavior or industry
• Personalized e-commerce experiences

Work your way backward from your product and expand outward. So, in a nutshell, ask yourself what the ultimate aim is? You should list high-traffic pillar page suggestions for the product page and then define it. From there, split your pillar page’s ideas into long-tail blog entries. Of course, you can always source out good ideas on the internet.

You’ll soon attract a large number of visitors, and all you have to do after that is convert those visitors into leads, users, or demos.

Section 2

Small business marketing using videos

Do you want to use video to boost your small or medium-sized business? This section covers the significance of video marketing, how to overcome obstacles in video marketing, and where you might get ideas for your approach.

According to Business 2 Community, “social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined,” meaning that those businesses who participate in video marketing are more likely to achieve success. 

The following are some suggestions for how to begin incorporating video into your marketing tactics.

The use of videos has taken social media and marketing by storm

It may appear intimidating for a small business owner or marketer. But video marketing is very easy. Many small company owners already wear many hats. We understand that adding video to the equation may be intimidating, especially if you don’t have the time, resources, or technical skills required for video production.

Video marketing isn’t nearly as time-consuming or difficult as you may believe. We’ve compiled a brief tutorial to assist you in getting started (and demonstrate how simple it is). We’ll discuss:

• Why is video important to small businesses?
• Overcoming the barriers to successful video marketing
• Video ideas for small businesses
• Video tips and techniques for small businesses
• How to get started with video marketing?

Why are videos important to small businesses?

Videos are the perfect answer for several reasons, many of which may be attributed to their organic nature. Videos can capture moments that text or image content simply cannot do effectively.

We’ll examine how video may benefit your social media marketing on sites like YouTube, your website, in emails, and even in your store or at an event.

Social videos for small business

According to a recent study by marketing firm Zephoria, “posts with videos generate up to 180% more engagement than posts without videos.”

Videos have become increasingly important on social media, and they should be used by small businesses.

Facebook reports that users spend an average of 50 million hours a day watching a video on their platform. Thus, video is a must-market with social media apps like YouTube, Facebook, And Instagram.

YouTube videos for small business

You’ve certainly heard that YouTube is the second most popular search engine, following Google search. So what does this mean for you? Consumers are looking for online reviews, how-tos, and more on YouTube more than ever before.

It means that you’ll be in front of more potential customers looking for videos about your business and items or services.

Website videos for small businesses

Did you know that the average consumer spends more time on your site when the video is present? “Presence of video on a web page increases its average time-on-site by 12 to 85%”(Animoto).

When you’ve got the option to utilize it, including video on your website may help increase conversions because it gives customers something they can see or imagine. There are different ways to incorporate video into your website:

• Homepage
• Product videos
• About page
• FAQs
• A short personal film for your about web page that explains your small business’s history

Email videos for small business

Including videos in emails can lead to an up to “40% rise in click-throughs.”

When you then combine that with the 57% of people who open their emails on a mobile device, it’s clear why marketers are turning to video.

It’s believed that videos within the email should be short – generally under 2 minutes. However, many email applications limit the size of your videos, so stick to a shorter length. To get started, simply link to them and state “video” in your subject line to begin seeing results.

In-person videos for small business

There are many different ways that you will be able to incorporate video into your store or at an event. Whether it’s a product demonstration, a marketing campaign, or just a way to build your brand and engage with potential clients, video can play a role in all of these things.

Overcoming the barriers to successful video marketing

It’s clear that video has many benefits for your small business, and it may help you overcome the barriers that stand in your way. However, common myths may keep your business from jump-starting a video department, so let’s list and address them.

Myth #1: Videos are too time-consuming

There’s a widespread misunderstanding about video creation that it takes days (or even more) to make a single video. This may be accurate when creating a full-length “feature” type film, however, producing videos for social media or simply including them on your blog and website does not have to be time-consuming.

You can get started with a few hours each week, and you’ll need less time as you become more experienced. To save time on production, you may reuse photographs or movies you already have.

Even huge companies with large budgets are now choosing less polished social videos to seem more genuine.

Myth #2: Videos are too complicated

Because they believe that they don’t have the expertise, many small enterprises avoid video. Unfortunately, video editing software isn’t easy to master, even for expert users. But there are a lot of video-editing tools available that cater to non-experts. And you can do it on your own using these programs.

You don’t need a lot of production for social videos, particularly. Many fascinating videos are short clips with only a few takes or even just one clip with text in them. Start simple and work your way up as you get more experienced with video-making.

Myth #3: Video is too expensive

Finally, video production doesn’t have to be expensive. Even experienced filmmakers look for ways to make their videos more affordable, whether working on a project or creating content for their own business.

Add text to your videos, and you won’t need to spend money on technical equipment (85% of people watch the video with the sound off). And with a low-cost, simple-to-use video editing program, you can tie everything together.

Video Ideas for small businesses 

Incorporating video into your small business can seem tricky, especially if it’s not something you have done before or if barriers are standing in your way. To help get started with incorporating video into your small business, here is a list of ideas to help you begin:

About us video 

This is a great way to introduce yourself and your business to new customers. This video should give people an idea of who you are, what your company does, what sets you apart from the competition, and why they should choose to work with your small business.

Product story video

Your products or services can be truly remarkable, even if it’s something as simple as a toothbrush. But this video will allow your customers to form their own opinion on your product and share their stories with others online. This is also a great opportunity for you to showcase the unique ways that your products can be used and how they fit into your customers’ lifestyles.

Video ad

You can use video to promote your business more compellingly and memorably than a traditional ad. This should answer the questions, “What’s this product or service all about? Who will it help? What’s the benefit for me?”.

Fun social video 

A fun video can be used to promote your business more casually, without the formalities that come along with an advertisement. It could show off your small business, or it may just give viewers an inside look into your company culture. This video format is best for giving fans a glimpse of what your business is like and how it operates.

How-to video 

This is a great tool to use when trying to show people how something works or how something can be used. Your audience won’t have to go through the hassle of trying to figure it out themselves, which could result in lost time and money. Share it on YouTube and social media too, where potential customers search for answers. Also, you can also share your expertise with a step-by-step instructional video or a detailed list.

Blog teaser video

If you have a blog or other online material, consider creating a short film trailer to advertise it. Ensure to include a clear call to action with the link where viewers can read more.

Testimonial video

Your customers are a valuable asset to your small business, and their opinions can play a major role in whether other people choose to buy from you. That’s why it is wise to ask your existing customers for their feedback on customer service, products, prices, and overall experience. You could even take it further by asking them to create a video testimonial.

Video tips and techniques for small businesses

We hope that you’ve been inspired to create videos. But, before you start filming, here are some pointers to help you get the most out of your video marketing.

• Get started with what you have. You’ll almost certainly have photographs and videos you may use to start making your first films. Check your phone, desktop, website, and social media sites for material to work with.
• Plan for sound off. Video without sound is a great way to send your message. It also drives more views and visits to your website since about 75% of visitors opt to watch the video with the sound off (and you can save on production costs by not having to add audio).
• Keep mobile in mind. The number of people viewing videos on their phones continues to grow. Make sure your text is big enough to read and, if you’re creating a video for mobile or social media, go with a square or vertical layout.
• Target your video ads. You may target the audience most likely to engage with your company or product using Facebook Ads Manager and other social networks’ targeting capabilities.
• One size doesn’t fit all. Is it possible to make a Facebook video? Do you have experience with Instagram stories? What about a Facebook live broadcast? Is there anything special I should know about creating an Instagram story? Different platforms require varied forms of media, so plan your video content accordingly.
• Use your smartphone. You don’t need pricey gear to get started. We all have high-quality cameras in our pockets already. Your phone may take better video than you think!
• Pay attention to lighting. Light is crucial to the success of your video. Don’t have access to professional lighting equipment? Shoot outside in the sunshine, next to a window, or simply turn on as many lights as you have inside.
• Pay attention to audio. The status of your audio can also significantly impact the video’s quality. When recording, listen with headphones to check that everything sounds OK. Also, if you plan to utilize sound, prepare for sound-off viewing and utilize text or captions.

Section 3

Email marketing for small businesses

Do you ever wonder why people still use email in this day and age when there are so many other options? Well, it’s because email is the most effective way to communicate with customers, potential clients, and partners. It has a 98% open rate and a 41% click-through rate. But what does that mean for marketers?

Email marketing is a key component of any business, but it doesn’t mean it’s simple to get right. We’ll address why email marketing is essential for your small business, how to create incredible emails, and, most importantly, how to scale your marketing efforts in this part.

Email marketing still plays a big part in business operations

With so many methods for promoting a new or expanding business, deciding where to focus may be difficult. Emails have a proven track record of success in increasing customer engagement.

Small businesses that use email marketing as part of their overall strategy grow at a rate more than six times higher than those that don’t. Unfortunately, many companies overlook this very effective tactic and fail to see the real benefits.

Email marketing is one of the best ways for first-time customers to connect with your brand and helps you to build trust. Don’t underestimate the power of creating a relationship with your audience!

Before your first send

Email marketing is both an art and a science. Your email marketing strategy must be strategic, creative, targeted, and effective. If you’re just now getting into the game or looking to fine-tune your strategy, here are some tips for success:

1. Begin by creating a strategy

There’s no wrong or right formula for your first email marketing strategy, as long as it meets the following criteria:

• Why am I writing emails?
• What purpose do they serve?
• What value does my audience get from them?
• Who is the intended recipient of my message?

After you’ve addressed these concerns, it’s time to plan your consumers’ journey. Consider this like designing a route for marathon runners; make sure the trail is free of obstructions and that the signs are pointing in the correct direction. You must understand the path your consumers follow from lead to conversion so that you can anticipate any demands or questions they may have on the road.

2. Segment your audience

Consider the information you’ll need long-term when constructing your email subscription form. The standard fields are name and email address, but gathering additional demographic data will allow you to segment your audience into categories based on age, gender, location, or another parameter.

Segmentation allows you to send different and relevant material that your subscribers will more likely engage with rather than using the same bulk email to everyone. After all, email list segmentation may raise open email rates by up to 60%.

For example, Facebook separated its list based on location and invited people to events in their neighborhood.

3. Personalize your messages

It’s time to create material specifically for people in that group after you’ve divided your list into categories based on purchasing history, interest, or other criteria. Perhaps a product has gone on sale, there’s an event going on in their neighborhood, or you’d want to address them by name and suggest something they’ll enjoy.

Make sure the recipient feels like the message was written just for them. You can reach out to your buyer personas by asking what they’re interested in or how you can help them further.

Don’t forget to include useful, actionable information to help them make educated purchases and contact other businesses if needed.

4. Scale your efforts

After establishing a strategy, organize your list into categories and develop custom content that engages your audience. It’s time to apply all of the tools and strategies that have been successful, as well as those yet to be tried, to reach more people. Automation is now your best bet.

You may also follow up with your existing customers after they’ve received a message from you. You can do this by scheduling emails to contact your subscribers at specific points in their customer journey (which you previously outlined in step #1).

5. Measure your success

The greatest approach to developing and refining your email marketing abilities is to look at the data and figure out what works, what you can improve, and what you may do without.

Keep an eye on your metrics, retarget non-engaging subscribers, and maintain high deliverability to guarantee long-term email marketing success. Find what works for you and keep moving by using segmented, targeted, and triggered campaigns. Segmenting your leads is critical to achieving the best results.

What should you look for in an email marketing platform?

There are a lot of choices and ideas to consider when it comes to email marketing platforms. We’ve provided you with advice and methods for developing your email marketing campaign, but choosing the appropriate provider might make or break your company’s growth.

With that in mind, choose a provider that can expand your organization in terms of subscriber count and functional capability, including features that will help you segment, personalize, and automate your strategy.

Section 4

Social media marketing for small businesses

Social media is essential to a small business because it helps you promote your product and interact with the customers. Social media provides additional exposure for your business, builds community engagement, and creates a relationship with consumers who may be interested in your product. In addition, it allows you to stay updated on what they’re interested in.

Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to know about small business social media marketing.

The value of social media for small businesses

Social media has become an integral part of the small business marketing plan in recent years.

What was once a novel way to communicate and connect with consumers has evolved into a powerful online marketing tool for companies of all sizes. Businesses can use sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest to reach out and interact with potential customers and present their brand positively.

Further research shows that those who invest time into building up their presence on social media channels experience more traffic and larger audiences—a whopping 30% higher than those who don’t use social media at all.

It also helps you stay updated on what they’re interested in. Social media has changed the way people shop around.

While browsing online, your potential customer might come across something that piques their interest, leading to more retail purchases online than ever before because 38% of buyers will visit a store within one day after finding it on Facebook.

These numbers show how much value social media can have for businesses of any size, but significantly smaller ones since getting noticed by the right people are so important.

Social media is beneficial to any business, large or small, and finding consumers on social media directly impacts sales.

While there are many benefits of using social media as part of your small business marketing plan, not all sites offer equal value when it comes down to generating leads or building brand awareness.

Specific networks might be better suited for particular industries. For instance, Twitter might work well for a fashion boutique, while LinkedIn would be more appropriate for a B2B service company.

So before you create any social media accounts and start posting updates about your latest products or services, take some time to consider the pros and cons of each social media platform and which one is right for your business.

We’ve organized the section below by social strategy stage, from beginners to pros, so you can quickly find what you’re looking for.

Getting started with small business marketing on social media

1. Define your social goals

If you don’t have an idea about what you want to achieve on social media, you’ll never know when you’ve succeeded or failed. You won’t keep an agile approach if this isn’t done.

Goals may differ significantly from one sector to the next. For example, while a retail firm may seek direct purchases on social, someone in higher education might be concerned with new student enrollments.

Here are some of the biggest goals of businesses that use social media marketing:

• Increase brand favorability: Social media can be used to generate both positive and negative opinions about your company.
• Increase brand awareness: How familiar social media is with your brand.
• Generate inbound leads: Increase the number of visitors to your website.
• Drive direct sales: Conversion to your online store
• Improve customer service: Answer questions and resolve issues faster.
• Brand engagement: How much social users like, comment, or share your content. You might even go beyond that and measure their Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Increase traffic to your website: Increase the number of visitors to your site who go ahead and purchase something.

2. Define your core metrics

Don’t forget to think about your business goals and how you want social media to help you achieve them. In addition, you’ll need objectives for social media presence that make sense for the platform you’re using.

Impressions: The number of times a user saw your message.

Engagements: The number of times a user has interacted with your message, including:

• Likes
• Retweets
• Follows
• Favorites
• Shares
• Replies
• Clicks

Engagement Rates: The number of impressions divided by the number of engagements.

Mentions: The number of times your brand or handle was mentioned on social media posts.

Site Visits: The number of times an individual visited your profile page.

Followers: The number of people who follow you on social media generally increases or decreases over time.

New Sales/ROI: The income created by social visitors, which may be tracked using UTM tags and website analytics.

3. Target your audience and social networks

You will reach your targeted audience through social media, but first, you must identify it. Consider things like:

• Age
• Location
• Income
• Education
• Career
• Interests

Remember that the more precise you can be, the better. Then, you’ll be able to build a solid social media marketing plan around these individuals and take a targeted approach to reach the people who will care about what you have to say.

Once you’ve identified the people you want to reach, the next step is determining where they are. As mentioned earlier, not every social media channel will make sense for your business. In addition, user bases on social networks are diverse. Don’t invest in your target audience if your target audience is on another network.

Before choosing a platform, ask yourself things such as:

1. Is the target audience on this social network?
2. How much activity is there?
3. What kind of content is most engaging?
4. Is it easy to publish and share on this platform?
5. Who is your direct competitor? How can you use them as an example of best practices in the industry (or how not to do things)?
6. What’s the lifespan of your content?

The answers to those questions will inform you of the networks you should choose.

4. Figure out what to share

You can’t just share anything on social media. You’ll need to choose something relevant to your audience.

Consider what worked well in the past and what you’d like to improve upon. You want to provide content that meets your business goals and appeals to your target market.

Sort your messages by your crucial metric, and you’ll see the top postings for that indicator. Examine a few to discover patterns and use that information when deciding what to post.

5. Build your publishing calendar

A publishing calendar is an excellent tool for organizing your social media activity. Some businesses may prefer to do it themselves, while others would instead use an app or website to automate the process of posting across multiple platforms.

The end goal is simple: Posting regularly increases engagement with your audience, which will raise awareness of your business and lead to an uptick in sales.

6. Respond to inbound messages

Unless you offer the most specialized product on earth, your consumers will undoubtedly discuss it (and you) on social media. Whether they directly tag you or use keywords and phrases relevant to your business, it’s up to you to respond to their communications to improve the user experience.

Keep an eye on your social media platforms for discussions or posts you need to react to. You may utilize a social media engagement tool to gather the conversations that directly include your name or are relevant to your organization.

7. Analyze your results

You may begin tracking the effectiveness of your efforts once you’ve determined which metrics are most important to your business and spent time on social networks posting and engaging.

Your time and how much you use social media will impact how often you analyze your results. Keep in mind that to optimize your plan, you must measure metrics. If your schedule is tight, a social media analytics tool such as google analytics may automatically generate high-level or detailed reports for you.

Advanced social media tips for small businesses 

1. Search social media for new opportunities

We’ve established that small company marketers must react to social media posts that identify or mention them. We recommend keeping an eye on social media for conversations about subjects related to your business and then participating in them for a more advanced technique.

These conversations will show up in your inbox in real-time so that you may contact anybody seeking a recommendation and offer them your services.

2. Run a competitive analysis

Keep an eye on your competitors’ social media efforts. This can assist you in comprehending the sector and how you compare to others and generate unique concepts to distinguish yourself from the competition.

3. Leverage relevant hashtags

Hashtags are a social media component that may be used to increase your content’s online visibility on social networking sites. Are you unsure which hashtags to utilize? Just make sure they’re relevant for your business and aren’t forced.

4. Create great visuals and videos

Visuals and videos are a great way to increase engagement on social media. However, if you’re looking for a straightforward approach, try utilizing images that include something from your company or depict your product.

5. Get your teammates on social media

Businesses have several options when it comes to social media, which might be both exciting and intimidating. As a small company marketer, you may be short on resources, but if someone at your firm can assist you, keep up, invite them to join you.

Never worry if your concern is that you’re doubling efforts or lowering account security. Social media collaboration solutions can guarantee that you effectively manage your team’s presence.

6. Boost your content with paid ads

If you don’t get the responses you anticipated on social media, it’s possible that increasing your views by investing in paid advertising will help your presence take hold. Each network has its own customized paid social media features, or you may use a paid social tool to boost your postings quickly.

Online marketing is the ideal choice for small businesses as it provides affordable and accessible methods to connect with consumers and increase brand visibility.

Small business owners who want to boost their presence but don’t have the resources or experience of larger businesses should start by developing a strong marketing plan that includes practical goals and time management procedures then set about executing that strategy via inbound approaches, videos, emails, and social networks.