We’ve put together these 6 ideas for small business marketing solutions because sometimes you need to strategize a solid marketing plan on a tight budget. We get it – not every business has a big budget, and fortunately not every business needs a big budget.
Startups can take a lot of time to get off the ground, especially when you are mostly working within your own finances. So, it’s a good idea to take a step back and come up with a strategy that can help you make that buck last a little longer.
It will take some grunt work to get the ball rolling, but you can implement a few proven tactics to help you get where you want to be.
Whether you have a new business or a business seeing a bit of a hard time, staying well-informed on marketing practices will pay-off.
1. Research Your Audience
According to a Marketo report, 56% of consumers feel that businesses need to have a deeper understanding of their needs.
How do we accomplish that?
Through research. Researching your target audience does not have to be costly– at least for basic information.
Through social media analytics, keeping track of your customers, and engaging with those who express interest in your product, you can get a fairly clear picture of who your target market is.
For example, you can use Instagram for business accounts and it’ll provide you with a look at your target audience. You can know when your audience is engaging with your posts, where they are from, how old they are, and what gender they are.
Once you have successfully made note of the trends you find within your customer base and you have an idea of your target audience, you can better serve that audience.
This makes it easier for you to know how your messaging should sound and where you should be advertising.
This is something you can do right now to improve your marketing strategy and strengthen your brand awareness – without spending a dollar.
2. Clean And Organize Your Data
Small business marketing is driven by data. All of the data you have about your business and field should be well organized so that you can make better decisions by looking at accurate data.
Any customer feedback, ad success numbers, and other data should be organized chronologically and cleaned out when it is no longer relevant to your business.
If your data is inaccurate or you don’t know where it came from, it is useless to you and your business. The best way to organize your data is to organize it as soon as you get it, but we all know this doesn’t always happen.
For the data that gets lost through the cracks, make sure to organize more than once a year. Try to organize your data once a month so that you aren’t making bad decisions off of faulty data. Small businesses need good data too.
3. Repurpose Old Marketing Data
Whether it’s an old study of yours or one from a different organization, you can use old data to your benefit.
With all of the information and statistics available online, it’s okay to take something a little older, if properly credited, and repurpose it. This is a great way to continue creating content to push your brand.
If you need to make a decision, don’t be afraid to look at old statistics to see what worked in the past for small businesses like yours.
Keeping in mind the date and outside factors of the times is important, but you don’t have to throw out anything that isn’t from this year or the last one. This is one marketing idea that will help you make informed decisions even when you are on a tight budget.
4. Simple Infographics
Infographics do a lot to get your point across. They capture attention while providing concise information– what’s not to love?
These images can do so much to get your name out there as people love to share them on social media. Graphic designers, of course, make the best infographics, but there are ways to make your own to get your point across.
With infogram.com, and sites like it, you can easily create eye-catching visuals using one of their many different packages.
You can start out free and upgrade to a pro package if you like. This is one fun way to keep your marketing thriving while saving the money you would use on a graphic designer to create the infographics you need during this time.
5. Get On Social Media
We’ve said it before and we will say it again, get on social media. You don’t need to pay for Facebook ads or boost your posts to promote your business either.
We know not everyone loves to be on it as much as you need to market well, but there are still many people who use multiple social media platforms every single day.
Social media is free, it’s great for engagement, it’s easy to use – and you know your audience is already on at least one of the major platforms.
Make sure you find where your target audience is, and how to best engage with them so that you don’t spread yourself too thin trying to use everything you hear about.
However, do make sure you take a look at Facebook or Twitter to see if it’s a good match for your business and audience.
There are other social networks that are regularly used and are easy to push any new content on; such as Reddit, LinkedIn, and Pinterest to mention a few.
6. Repurpose Content To Work On All Platforms
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel to get some momentum with content marketing. Once you have a new event or a blog post written up, you can use it on all of your media platforms to maximize your reach.
It just takes a bit of editing or re-formatting to take one story and make it work for a picture focused platform like Pinterest, or a conversational one like Reddit.
For example, if you write a great blog, also create a nice graphic with a quote or statistic so you can quickly share it across other platforms.
Publishing on multiple platforms doesn’t have to take all of your time if you work smart instead of just work hard. You can re-word longer ideas to fit into a Tweet, or expound on data to make it a full story or a video.
Whatever you have, you can use it to engage with your audience anywhere.
Don’t be afraid of using old stories. You can repost from last year as a throwback. Many people will still not have seen the information. If it’s still good content, there’s no shame in sharing it again.
Need Help With Small Business Marketing?
We hope our list has helped you, and we do have more small business marketing tips to share. If you would like to stay updated on the latest online marketing trends and tips, sign up for our email list.
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