Small business door

5 Ways to get your small business marketing started

Small business marketing involves wearing a lot of hats and starting on a shoestring budget. You’ll want to start with your branding and work your way through to calendared activities. Hence, the following recommended list of marketing channels will positively impact most small businesses types.

1. Branding

  • Potential customers and prospects are going to spend little time looking further into a business whose name or tagline doesn’t represent the product or service. In contrast, if your business name isn’t clear on what you offer, consider adding a tagline.
  • Once that’s finalized, be sure your logo is also representative of what your business represents.
  • Lastly, if you’re a brick and mortar business, decide on a consistent style and color palette to brand your business cards, signage, attire, etc.

2. Website

  • The first step in establishing an online presence is with a website. If you’re a service provider, a single page solution may be the best way to go. Think of it like a business card on steroids.
  • To gain further trust in customers and prospects, you’ll want to provide informational pages on your products, services, and insights. The more you offer your visitors, the more likely they are to engage.
  • To quickly sell your products online, going with an out of the box solution can get you off the ground. If you require extensive features, such as unique shipping options, then a custom build may be the way to go.

3. Email

  • To increase brand awareness, you can automate emails based on a variety of triggers. For example, scheduling a blast to send your list of subscribers a unique promotion, or limited time offer, may get visitors started in your sales funnel.
  • To stay top of mind, newsletters offering insights may build trust and motivate readers to reach out to you.
  • Be sure to have an intuitive signup form to grow your subscriber list.

4. Social Media

  • There are handful of platforms available for your business. Be sure you’re putting most of your effort in platforms that are relevant to your business and easy to manageable.
  • Event photos, news releases, and educational posts integrating images or video may raise the likelihood of others engaging with your post.
  • Because frequency is the key to success, be sure to plan out your communications in a social media calendar. This should be done weeks in advance for informative content with ad-hoc posts as needed.

5. Search Engines

  • People search for your products or services online, so do the work to be near (or at) the top. Therefore, to improve search engine optimization (SEO), work on keeping your web content fresh, informative, integrated with related keywords, and with structured content on your page.
  • If you have the budget, incorporate search engine marketing (SEM) clicks to your website based on specific keyword strings and banners within search engine advertising.
  • Lastly, be sure to look at your analytics to see what’s performing well and how you can adjust based on your findings.

Get Started

With a good amount of time and effort, you can get your small business marketing in full swing with a minimal budget. For businesses who don’t have in-house teams, and need marketing assistance or guidance, Element Media Solutions has the resources and experience to help. We offer all media services including brand development, digital marketing, and printing. To get started, give us a call at (559) 425-6368 or click on our Contact Us button below.