Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

If you’re a small business owner, you have probably consumed a plethora of content on how to make it grow through marketing, from social media, Email Marketing, SEO, advertising and many more. There are multiple tactics to get your business out there. The question is which one is for you?

What is the purpose of a marketing strategy for small business? 

Let's first analyse what is the purpose of a marketing strategy for a small business? Well, quite simply, a strategy should be developed in order to give your business a structure in the way in which it goes out and promotes itself. Ensuring it has a process to handle the activity that you want to deliver, as well as a way to measure the performance. 

It should also be a great barometer to audit spend on tools and ads to ensure that you're not leaking budget through unused technologies and poor advertising performance. 

What is small business marketing?

Small business marketing is different from that of large organisations. Why? Because your business needs marketing that does one thing and one thing alone: help you grow. 

Small business marketing can leverage a combination of paid and organic channels to reach an audience. But every penny that you spend on advertising, staff, and tools needs to work for you, and that's why small business marketing is different from marketing larger businesses or businesses with larger budgets.

Where to start with small business marketing?

I've written countless marketing strategies for small businesses, medium businesses,  and billionaire-backed businesses, and one of the things that will always be surprising to me is that small businesses create a marketing strategy that focuses on optimising one channel or another and performing tactical implementations to grow their business.

Now, don't get me wrong, it is an important part of marketing, developing the tactics you're looking to employ, and then working out a structure and a process in which you're going to deliver them. However, so many small businesses failed to do one simple thing that could change the course of their business, and that is discovering their just cause.

You see a just cause or a golden circle, as Simon Sinek called it and codified as - Why, How and What. It is something that so few organisations articulate. And it is a reason that so often their messaging doesn't land.  Marketing lives in people's brains. I wrote this in the Your Business Magazine earlier this month. Brains aren't logical. Brains don't decide based on uptime speed, statistics, facts, figures, and data. Brains cannot absorb rationale or reason and use it to make real decisions, which is why people have “gut feelings”. So with marketing communications, we need to do one thing, and that is to talk to the emotional side of the brain. You need to find a way to talk to the limbic brain, which is why we will always suggest that you start with the cause. 

How to create an effective Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses - introducing COMPASS

A marketing strategy is a document that every business should have, and so few actually do. 

The document should be there to guide a business with a methodical approach to hit its business goals. There are numerous different strategic frameworks for a business to build one. All of them are good at giving a business an idea of what they’re going to do and when. However, I found that there’s always been some things lacking with the ones I used in the past, so I developed COMPASS. 

COMPASS is a strategic marketing framework that is designed to give small businesses marketing clarity and direction. It also ensures that the business knows what tools and systems it needs to deliver its marketing initiatives. 

You can learn more about it here - and also download a template. 

Popular approaches to small business marketing

With every ultimate guide you’d have seen, there are many different tactics or SPRINTS you can use to promote your business. 

Some you pay for, and some you do overtime to build your business up.

Before diving into an approach, you need to clearly define what your goal is. Now, of course, I know you’re going to think, well, I actually just want more deals, duh! 

And yes, that is a perfectly fine goal. But you need to get clear, and I recommend you walk it back to the route. This next bit reminds me of a joke my late father told me, he donned the “logic worker joke”. If you want to hear the joke, reach out directly, and I will tell you it. Anyway, play along. 

GOAL - I want more sales.

So if you want more sales, you need more prospects. 

So if you want more prospects, you need more leads. 

If you want more leads, you need to…

Ah, now this bit is where you can get the route of a key activity. Suppose you had, say, 1,000 followers on LinkedIn. And that 1,000 led to 10 deals. It stands to reason that you need to find a process to grow your following to 2,000 followers; this could increase your sales by 100%. 

But here are really good ways to fuel your pipeline.

Paid for strategic marketing SPRINTS 

1. Run ads

Yep, simply run ads. This is the fastest way to increase traffic. You don’t need to be an expert to get started, but you do need to be able to invest some money into campaigns. 

Here are some little trade secrets that I will help you with. I want you to remember the point about the logic worker; a lot of digital marketing is just doing things that are logical. Some of it, the more fun side of it, is doing something that seems illogical but grabs attention.  

Step out of business owner mode and think about the customer journey.

Customer sees ad

Customer clicks ad

Customer lands on page. 

What does the customer see on the page? 

So often, ads fail because they’re deployed on a non-optimised page or on the homepage, and no action is taken from there. 

Therefore, what does the customer need to see on the page? Content that backs up the headline that got them to click in the first place, and then an offer. This is where I recommend the funnel platform or a very clear landing page, whose sole purpose is to take an action. 

Now, of course, you will see people who bounce off, and this is where logic comes in. Okay, they’ve been on my site and didn’t act, but now I have the famous “Cookie”. I set up a secondary campaign that is called re-marketing, and I specifically target people who have been on my site across channels and websites, to bring them back to my site. Again, I use a targeted landing page that has one purpose: for them to take the next step. 

2. Run webinars

This may feel daunting, but I am going to take a leaf from Russell Brunson here. If your business is framed around solving one major problem, and this is your framework, run webinars to show people how to fix that problem. 

Explain how your framework solved the problem, and the steps that they need to take to solve the problem. 

Then, ask if you can pitch to them, and pitch your offer. 

Underpin this with targeted ads to an audience in a specific region or location, to drive sign-ups. Do this weekly. 

This is also a form of high-value content, and if you use some tools, you can clip parts to show key components. 

Go live with a webinar every week, and soon enough, you will have opportunities.  

3. Run a contest

This is a great lead magnet. You offer something that your ideal clients want, and delivery of your service for free for a long enough time to show results. The winner gets onboarded and sees how you have added value to their business, and therefore would be willing to pay for it later. 

But also, you should now have several contacts that you can nurture via email. 

You could even offer better rates as a “boobie prize” for a select few, so that you have enough business to cover the free delivery and make a small profit from several others. 

A good way to consider structuring it is:

• One complimentary delivery (six months, requesting a Google review at the end)

• Three 80% off 

• Three 60% off 

• Three 40% off

• Five 20% off

Again, you need to drive traffic to your contest. So this is where you would need to set up an advertising campaign. 

I’d choose a small local area so you can replicate it in another area later. 

Inexpensive strategic marketing SPRINTS

1. SEO/AEO/AIO

This is something that you need to build up over time. SEO is something that takes months to slowly build your domain authority. 

Simple ways to find out what to write about are to go on Google and start writing a question, and it will show you how it usually ends. Make a note in a spreadsheet. 

Ask the question and then scroll to the “People also asked” section. Expand the questions so more come up. 

The real value to SEO is something you build up over time. Finding terms that have commercial or transactional intent. 

Also, you need to find backlinks for your website from sites that have a higher domain authority than your own. 

2. Affiliate offers

If you have clients, make them an offer to get some revenue or a discount for making an introduction to your business to a friend who signs up. This is a good way to get more warm leads in, because your client is someone who vouches for your business, and it reduces a barrier to entry. 

3. Trade show attendance

There are a lot of trade shows. Many of them have free tickets to attend. It’s worthwhile going to some events and networking with businesses you want to help. 

You can use it as a fact-finding mission. Where else better to find out about challenges and issues potential clients face? You don’t need to try to sell anything. Just take note, it could prompt content ideas to answer the challenge and target their greatest pains. 

4. Networking events

Like trade shows, heading to networking events is a good place to meet with other business owners. It can help you create relationships with other business owners. It gives you an opportunity to learn more about the issues potential clients face. 

5. Social media marketing 

There are multiple ways to do social media. You could launch a personal brand and build up a following. Or you could deliver content for your business brand with you as the face. Or a combination of the two. 

There are a plethora of gurus who’ll show you how to grow. The main takeaway is to be consistent. Post frequently on a platform. 

Post content that is engaging and interesting, by telling stories and things that people can relate to, that solves an issue for them or shows them how to do something. This allows you to build up trust over time. 

If you head to trade shows and networking events and ask what their issues are with marketing, then you will have the opportunity to get inside the minds of the people you’re trying to target. Record the issues and answer or solve them on social media. Over time, you’ll compound the people who are looking for answers, who can not only become followers but are more likely to become clients. 

SYSTEMS to support marketing activity

1. Website

Your website is one of the most fundamental components of your marketing strategy. As a small business, you need to be able to showcase the value you provide to your clients and customers. Therefore, you should build a website that showcases that. 

My personal views on websites are that there is a lot of emphasis on trying to make them aesthetically pleasing, and they therefore lose substance. The most important thing is to nail your narrative. I refer back to the point about the cause. You can highlight what you’re trying to do as a business and who you are helping. 

Subsequently, you don’t need to write about all the functions and features of your product or service on your website. What the website copy should do is answer objections, be really clear, and make them want to take the next step with you. 

If you have a technical solution, you can create technical specification documents, and you can make them downloadable with data collection. This way, you have a lead who you know is information gathering, and that gives you the opportunity to pick up the phone. 

2. Critical path calendar 

So you will know about a content calendar. But in the world of agencies, I used to build critical paths. A critical path is a detailed breakdown of every sprint. So let’s say you’re going to run ads. Work backwards from the point of placing the ad.

You need to:

• Decide what the advert is going to say or what the offer is. 

• What does it look like? Is it going to be a video, text ad with an image, or graphic?

• Where do they end up on your site or funnel? 

• What does the site say, what is the copy?

• What is the activation or key action you want them to take? 

• If they take the action, what happens next? If they don’t, what happens next? 

• Then you need to write the copy

• Design the page

• Launch the page 

• Test the page

• Test the funnel

• Write the email nurture sequence. 

• Build the advertising campaign

  • What platform?

  • Who are you targeting?

  • Pixel installation and reporting

And so on, this is also playing the logic worker. A detailed critical path is something you and your team can see at a glance where things are, and go into detail. You can assign a RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted and informed) so that it is clear who is doing what and then in what time frame. This allows you to keep your sprints on track. 

If you want a raw spreadsheet on a Critical Path, drop me an email, and I will send one to you.

3. CRM platform

There are many different CRMs, all of them doing different things well. Some are expensive, and some are cheaper. The important thing for you to look at is what the CRM does. If you’re looking to capture leads, you need a CRM that allows you to create forms and then set up some automation behind them. 

As I mentioned before, you can create technical specification documents around your products. Well, a CRM would allow you to create a form and collect the data, then send an email with an attachment. 

If you want a list of good CRMs, I will share an article on this in the coming days. 

4. Funnel platforms

Some CRMs allow you to create landing pages, but there are better ways to create a funnel. With the world of the internet being predominantly on mobile phones, you now need to optimise there first, so a platform that is ready for mobiles is the best idea. 

If you want to see a good funnel, then here is a link to 30 days free to the one I use, another gift to you. 

5. Tools to help support content

If you’re looking at doing SEO yourself, then you can look at free tools to answer questions for small businesses. But a good tool to use is Semrush for researching terms, which is a paid-for software. 

If you want to do deep desk research, then I would recommend AI as a supporting tool, and the best for research, in my opinion, is Perplexity. This is a great solution for scraping information, searching Reddit and social media for challenges people regularly talk about. 

Google and TikTok are also great platforms to do research, as you can find out the questions people are asking for free.

Additionally, you can go to Answer the Public, People also asked, and Answer Socrates. These will give you an idea of what people are looking for. Start to answer the questions in articles and on social media to aid with discovery. 

6. Social media management tools

This is often overlooked, but if you want to create a mass amount of social media content and then have it deploy over time, then I would recommend getting a social media management tool. 

Buffer is free to get going with, so it is worth using that to schedule some social posts. 

7. Analytics and reporting 

This is also so often overlooked. 

Reporting and analysing efforts can help you get a better understanding of what is working and what isn’t. 

If you want to see it in a simple display, then Looker Studio is the best place to start and integrate it with your data sources. If you are looking to connect all your data sources seamlessly, then you should use Supermetrics, as this will give you a good oversight to all platforms and integrates into Looker.  

Conclusion

There are many marketing strategies for small businesses, or approaches and tactics that can help with growth. 

But the clearest way to go forward with your marketing strategy is to use our COMPASS framework and give yourself a clear cause and approach, then pick a winning platform and focus on that for 90 days. You will be better off by doing something consistently for that timeframe. 

Offer 

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope that some of these ideas support you in growing your business and providing a structure to a marketing strategy for your small business. If you could just read the next paragraph, I’d like to make you an offer. 

I appreciate that you’re looking to grow your business. Marketing is especially time-consuming. And if you’re running a business and the lead executioner of what your business does, you’re looking for quick wins. But what if you didn’t have to do all the marketing either? What if I could offer you a marketing function for your business that could handle optimising your website, delivering long-form articles, setting up and managing your CRM and automation strategies, deploying and optimising advertising campaigns, delivering social content, and giving you a report, and it would cost three times less than what it would cost you to bring a team in-house? Would you be open to it?

If that’s of interest to you, click this link and let’s book 30 minutes to discuss your marketing needs.