Marketing Strategies for Small Business - Appy Pie

11 Effective Small Business Marketing Ideas


Abhinav Girdhar
By Abhinav Girdhar | Last Updated on March 8th, 2024 12:24 pm | 6-min read

Whether you are planning to start a new business or already have one running, having a strong online presence is critical. Your online presence makes it easy for consumers to find you. However, it will not help until you have a clear enough idea of who your target audience is. Do your homework and determine your target audience based on the characteristics of your product. Irrespective of the size of your business, you must create a persona of your target clients to whom you would offer your products or services. Small business owners usually don’t have enough funds to do everything they want and need to do to promote their brand. They do have appealing business marketing ideas for growth, but they may struggle with their tight budgets. Marketing Strategies for Small Business - Appy PieIn this article, we will talk about the marketing ideas for small businesses that can help them grow without spending a lot of time and money. It may be a little difficult to understand these small business marketing ideas if you don’t have a clear understanding of what small business marketing is. So, let us begin with a simple introduction.

What is Small Business Marketing?

Small Business Marketing is a technique for local small businesses to establish their online presence. It is also called local business marketing. It helps small businesses attract prospects, turn them into buyers and earn them more profit. However, marketing is much more than just putting your name out into the world. Marketing can be explained in a relevant manner today more than ever, specifically since consumers expect businesses to be responsive and engaged. To meet the consumers’ expectations, the best thing that a small business owner can do is to develop an efficient small business marketing plan that sets them apart from the competition.

Elements of Small Business Marketing Plan

An ideal marketing plan outlines how you will reach your target audience by effectively implementing your business marketing strategy. Furthermore, incorporating these elements into your small business marketing plan, along with a membership site platform, can result in lasting growth, improved member retention, and better online presence. Here are a few major elements of an effective small business marketing plan.

  • Blog
  • You can start posting blogs on your own business website. If you don’t have one, you can use any free or low-cost online website building tool to create a free site and use their templates to post the blogs. Even if you post once a week, it will still enhance the visibility of your website. Blogs will help you educate your potential customers how you are different from others and why they should trust your brand. Add a call-to-action on your posts for the readers to subscribe or share the blog. This is a great way of generating leads and providing visitors with the product information if they are not ready to purchase anything from you yet.

  • Website
  • A well-designed website is one of the most effective elements of your small business marketing plan. A business website helps you show who you are, where you are, what you offer, and how a potential customer can contact you. If you don’t have a business website and plan to create one, you can go for Appy Pie’s no-code website builder that helps you create a business website in just a few clicks.Marketing Strategies for Small Business - Appy Pie

  • Email Tools
  • Email marketing is one of the most critical elements of a business marketing strategy. It is a simple, free, and efficient way to communicate with your potential customers. As per a recent study, 73 percent of millennials prefer business notifications or communications to come via email. The best part is that you can send out product updates, newsletters, database promotions to hundreds of users in a single click. Small business owners are short of time to perform digital marketing tasks, which is why they consider using marketing automation to make this process easier.

  • Social Media Accounts
  • Social media may seem like a frivolous platform, but there is more to them than what you see at first glance. They not only help people connect and socialize, but also act as powerful business marketing tools. Social media platforms help businesses improve your search engine rankings, increase traffic, and engage with their potential customers.

  • Live Streaming
  • Live streaming refers to transmitting data on an online platform in real-time in the form of videos. The content is recorded and broadcast simultaneously. This deviates from the erstwhile practice of recording on an earlier date and scheduling its transmission later. In this era of instant communication, it is different social media that serve as immediate sources of information keeping the users updated not just about their friends but also about what’s going on in the world. This technology has immense potential for marketers to reach their target audience and connect with them on a more personal level. However, like any other platform it does need some time for familiarization so that it may be leveraged effectively. Different categories of audience tune in to different media for live-streamed content. So, this is something that you need to look into. Generally, common live streaming channels are Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, etc.

  • Conversion Tools
  • We have been focusing on the assets that help you grow your business, but we haven’t yet talked about how these assets will help your business drive revenue. The best way to start generating leads using your website is to integrate a conversion tool. A conversion tool helps you optimize your website and drive leads. The best option is creating a chatbot as it answers the visitors’ queries instantly. It is important that you be quick in responding to the users’ queries or you will lose them. Chatbots on the website initiate chat as soon as anyone visits the website. They interact with users like a live agent and provide them with relevant information. You can also use chatbots to send out promotional updates, email notifications, and much more.
Now that the concept of small business marketing is clear, let us move further and talk about how a small business can identify its market followed by the best ways to market a small business.

How Can Small Businesses Identify Their Target Market?

Identifying your target market is not the hardest thing to do. You have an ideal customer in mind while creating or designing a product. However, to accurately assess and to get a more detailed idea about your target market, you can follow these four steps:
  1. Analyze Your Product or Service
  2. You must first analyze the need of your product. Begin with asking yourself a few questions to learn who might get value from your product. For example:
    • What problems does it solve?
    • Who would benefit from it most?
    • What need does it fill?
    You will get a preliminary idea with these questions. An idea of what your product is and can be turned into.
  3. Study Your Competition
  4. Make sure you know who your competitors are. Analyzing your competition thoroughly will help you identify what markets you should target. Studying your competition comes with various other benefits too. It helps you find out the pricing strategies of your competitors and undercut them to promote your business.
  5. Segment Your Audience by Criteria
  6. You can divide your audience by criteria. They can be segmented in either demographic, geographic, or behavioral patterns.
  7. Research and Analysis
  8. Once you have narrowed down your market using the steps above, it’s time to research further. Figure out the marketing strategies you want to use. Check if your target market is large enough for sustainable business.

Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

There is always something that separates a good businessman from a great one! Here are a few major small businesses marketing tips that will not only take your business to greater heights, but will also help you understand when and how you can go from good to great!

  1. Design marketing materials
  2. Create an attractive color palette to design your brand logo. Let the creative juices flow and consider creating your color scheme with Appy Pie’s Color Wheel Tool. Load your website with a unique look using customized or pre-made color palettes. Use Appy Pie’s high-quality designing tool to design your brand logo. Add beautiful visual elements to your website like images, videos based on your products. These elements should not only be appealing but also convey your brand message to the visitors.

  3. Determine your brand's identity
  4. Create a reliable brand identity to promote your business. Brand identity is a combination of your brand logo, brand name, design, and visual elements. A consistent brand identity can help you look more professional and attract new customers. According to a recent Facebook study, 77% of consumers are loyal to brands. The founder of Amazon – Jeff Bezos says that branding is what people say about your brand when you are not present in the room. It is an emotion that people have when they hear your brand name.

  5. Plan an email marketing strategy
  6. Share your content and landing pages links with the prospects who seem interested in knowing more about your brand and its products. Create an email marketing strategy and start sending out emails with these links and the recent product updates. Do not send out too many emails to the users who sign up for your emails, send just enough to keep them updated, informed, and engaged. Always use professionally designed templates to send out these emails. You can use many of the email tools available online that offer basic analytics including track, open, and click rates.

  7. Identify your buyer persona
  8. Create a buyer persona that describes the story of your ideal customer. It will help you optimize your website for them. Think of questions like-
    • What are the buyers thinking while searching for your product?
    • What are they looking in a product like yours?
    • What are their pain points?
    Once you have a better understanding of all these points, try to learn more about the target user that can help you figure out what are their preferences, what types of things they may be searching for and you can include those expressions on your website.

  9. Create your website with a CMS template
  10. Creating your own website using a CMS (content management system) template is one of the most effective online marketing strategies for small businesses. Most of the popular Content Management Systems offer customized templates. You can use these templates for free or you can purchase them and customize as per your business needs. You can add SEO and CMS plugins to optimize your website content for Google search. This helps you get a better ranking on Google. You can also create your own CMS mobile app and use the templates that Appy Pie offers.

  11. Hire freelancers or agencies for web design
  12. If you want to create a website for your small business and are not technically trained, you can go for a marketing agency or a freelancer that specializes in web design. It is always great for a business to have an updated and well-optimized website. It increases brand visibility and informs the visitors about the recent product updates. An updated website helps your users understand that you are professionally active and take your business seriously. Various digital marketing agencies for small businesses provide agents and freelancers for content writing, website designing and much more. Appy Pie is one of the best companies that offers a great website building tool for beginners. The best part is that you do not need any programming knowledge to create a website using this codeless development tool.

  13. Research keyword opportunities
  14. You can use the buyer persona that you have created to find the relevant keywords for your brand. There are various keyword finder tools available online that help you find related keywords for your target audience. Use any of those tools to create a list of the possible keywords and try to include them in the articles, blog posts and the other content that you publish on the website. You can optimize your websites and fit in these keywords at various places on your website such as page titles, meta-description, and H1 tags.

  15. Boost your Google ranking with SEO
  16. This is one of the most popular marketing ideas for small businesses. To check your Google ranking, have you ever tried searching for your products or services online? If yes, did you see your website name in the Google search results? There are a lot of factors that come into play in determining which website or page gets displayed at the top of the search results on Google search engine. These factors include-When it all works out well, Google finds the best piece of content and presents it to the person searching. Try to structure your website and shape your content to be displayed in the top searches. This is how you can position your brand to be discovered by your target audience. Here is a video that will help you understand how Search Engine Optimization works.
    (Above video is a part of a more elaborate course on Academy by Appy Pie. To access the complete course, please Click Here, or continue reading below.)

  17. Optimize your website for mobile devices
  18. A business website needs to be optimized for mobile devices. Most online users use their mobiles to access websites, so your website must be easy to navigate on smartphones. You do not have to be a technical expert to create a website that looks perfect on a mobile device. Many CMS platforms like Appy Pie offer mobile-optimized templates. Pick any of those templates and apply it on your website. If you are worried about doing this on your own, you can check online for any popular small business marketing agency and hire them to optimize your business website for mobile devices.

  19. Create your social media strategy
  20. This is the best marketing strategy for small businesses. Many social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. offer great opportunities to share content, posts, and promotions. You can promote your products and services on these social media platforms. When users come online to make a purchase, these platforms help them find you even more quickly. Make sure not to promote your products on too many platforms at once. Here is a list of some popular social media platforms that you can go for.

  21. Encourage happy customers to share their experiences
  22. Make a review section for the customers on social media and your website where they can share their feedback. A happy customer can make your products and services look good and tell other consumers more about your company and brand. Get in touch with your customers after they have made the purchase, to check if they are happy with your product. If yes, request them to post a review on social media or your business website. Do not ignore those who say that they are not happy, try to find out what went wrong and ensure that actions are taken to improve the services.

Conclusion

Well, that’s all for now! Keep in mind that every step you take will have a huge impact on your business. Few things like blogging can take time to start kicking in and driving traffic, but social media posts can have immediate impact. Even if you implement only a few of these marketing tips, you will see awesome results. If it seems difficult (although it is not), take one step at a time, do not try to do everything in one go. Pick one and dive in to get started! Let us help you out with the most effective one. Its SEO Optimization. Using this business marketing idea, you can increase your brand visibility. Go through Appy Pie’s SEO Optimization Academy Course and learn how you can optimize your website and make it visible to the target audience.

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Abhinav Girdhar

Founder and CEO of Appy Pie