How to Market Your Small Business On a Budget

Every business needs to devote resources to digital marketing. After all, a strong online presence is essential for any business.

For large corporations with plenty of money to allocate for marketing, this doesn’t pose any problems. However, just because your small business doesn’t have the same budget doesn’t mean you can’t make use of effective marketing strategies.

There has never been a better time to take advantage of low-cost digital marketing strategies than today.

If you’re looking to jumpstart the marketing for your small business, keep reading! In this article, we’ll be discussing ways on how to market your small business on a budget.

Leverage Email Marketing

Using email marketing to achieve results can be an excellent option for small businesses with tight marketing budgets.

Email marketing involves sending emails to customers for purposes other than order confirmations or direct responses to their inquiries. Examples are newsletters containing company updates, as well as sales campaigns and exclusive discounts for subscribers.

Here are some reasons why email marketing is beneficial for small businesses:

• High Return on Investment (ROI): eMarketer reports that email marketing had an ROI of 122%, four times greater than other digital marketing techniques. It’s possible to boost this number by utilizing tactics like split testing, double opt-in, and maintaining a consistent schedule.
• Targeted Campaigns: Email marketing gives you the ability to build highly targeted campaigns by utilizing the data you already have on your mailing list. For those unfamiliar with email marketing, producing targeted content can be a bit challenging. However, including a subscriber’s first name in your email is an easy way to start personalizing your message. According to studies, email open rates can rise by up to 26% when the subject line includes the subscriber’s first name.
• Boost Your Sales: Email marketing is a great strategy to increase sales, particularly if foot traffic to your physical store has considerably dropped.
• A timely offer will influence certain shoppers to buy. A great strategy to turn a subscriber into a buyer is to inject urgency into your promotions and give significant discounts or free shipping.
• It is also possible to upsell existing customers through email marketing. If a customer hasn’t bought anything in a while, you can get them back into the fold.

Make Effective Use of Social Media

Although social media can be used to communicate and socialize, it is also a highly effective business tool that should not be underestimated.

Small businesses can use social media to connect and engage with current and prospective customers.

In fact, data compiled by SCORE indicates that as many as 77% of small businesses in the United States are currently utilizing social media platforms for marketing, sales, and customer support.

One of the first steps is choosing the right social media platforms that fit your audience and business goals.

To help you get started, here’s some info on different social media networks:

• Facebook: The site is perfect for companies looking to generate more leads and establish relationships because it is the largest platform with roughly 2.89 billion monthly active users.
• LinkedIn: Both B2B and B2C companies can benefit from the business networking platform by using it to build customer trust, establish authority, and engage their target audiences.
• X: Businesses with a target audience of people under the age of 50 and the desire to remain up-to-date with current events, announcements, and hot topics will profit greatly from this platform’s immediacy.
• Pinterest: Photo-sharing sites like this one are ideal for companies with a distinctive visual style. It’s fantastic for generating sales since many people use it to research their options before making a purchase.
• Snapchat: This is among the most rapidly expanding social media platforms. Offering promos, tailored content, exclusive access, and developing relationships with influencers are all ways businesses can use Snapchat to increase brand awareness and customer loyalty.
• Instagram: To maintain its popularity, Instagram has stayed faithful to its mission: allowing users to share photos and videos directly from their phones.
• TikTok: TikTok is a social media phenomenon that has exploded in popularity since the Covid-19 outbreak. A younger audience is drawn to the platform because of its ease of use, extensive music library, and innovative filter options.

The use of social media should go beyond simply promoting your business’s products and services. Put your time and energy into creating and sharing informative content on these platforms instead.

Create High-Quality Relevant Content

In digital marketing for companies, content is king, as the adage goes.

In fact, 70% of marketing professionals are now spending on content creation, and another 72% say that having a robust content strategy is crucial to their success.

Content marketing is just as critical for small businesses, if not more so. This is because smaller companies lack the marketing budget of larger ones, and content marketing has one of the highest total returns on marketing investments (ROI).

Additionally, it’s a strategy that will keep paying off for years after it’s implemented

Here are some things to keep in mind when creating your content:

Develop a Relationship With Your Audience

Remember that you aim to cultivate a connection with customers when you choose the kinds of content you’ll publish and the topics you’ll cover. As a result, it’s vital to ensure that the content you create always reflects your company’s brand voice.

Since your audience will recognize your brand from each piece of content you publish, it’s critical that you maintain a consistent voice and quality.

Demonstrate Your Authority

Creating informative content for your target audience is an excellent opportunity to show off your knowledge and experience in areas connected to your core business and offerings.

By providing extensive information on your content topics, you can position your company as a thought leader in your field.

As a result, your website becomes a go-to place for anyone looking for trustworthy information about what you do best.

Create Content Worth Sharing

Effective content marketing also includes creating content that people want to share with their friends and followers. While it boosts your small business’s social media profile by gaining new followers, doing so also creates a built-in marketing network for every new piece of content you publish.

Build a Website

Even though 97% of customers conduct product and service research online, SCORE found that just 51% of small companies have websites.

As such, it’s crucial that your small business has a website that existing and potential customers can refer to.

Here are some ways that a website can help your business:

Helps Customers Find Your Business

According to Verisign’s research, 88% of small businesses in the United States believe that having a website has made finding their firm easier for customers. Modern customers are continuously researching their laptops, tablets, and smart devices.

Having a website makes it possible for customers to find and learn more about your business whenever and wherever they choose.

Establishes Credibility

Small businesses can benefit from having a website since it gives them more flexibility and credibility. The same study by Verisign found that 84% of American consumers consider having a website more reliable than having merely an active social media presence.

A company’s website can help establish credibility and bring in new customers.

Grow Your Business

Increasing market share and attracting new clients are top priorities for many small businesses. Despite the importance of face-to-face encounters and the fact that most revenue is generated through referrals, a website allows you to reach countless people worldwide.

However, building a website also has its challenges. Here are some tips you can follow to increase your chance of success:

• Consider your website’s design and layout carefully: Customers are forming opinions and making conclusions about your shop, restaurant, or office based on your website. People are more inclined to ignore you if they perceive that your website doesn’t accurately represent what your company has to offer.
• Cover all the necessary information: Someone visiting your website is most likely searching for detailed information to help them decide whether or not to buy your product or service. They may become annoyed and abandon your site to switch to a competitor if they have difficulty looking for what they need.
• Pay attention to your call-to-actions (CTAs): Aim to make your website CTAs stand out and be easy to find.
• Use cohesive, relevant, and high-quality imagery: When a visitor arrives on your site, they should have a clear idea of what your business does. Avoid using clichéd or overly generic images on your website.
• Optimize your site for mobile: To be effective, a website must be mobile responsive. More than a third of Americans make all of their online purchases using a mobile device, and they spend over five hours a day on their phones.
• Prioritize your website’s loading speed: According to a survey, 88.5% of web users will abandon a website that loads slowly. Furthermore, roughly 70% of online consumers say that page load times influence their buying decisions.

To ensure a seamless operation of your website, keep the system updated, optimize videos and photos for faster downloads, and use a hosting provider that can accommodate your bandwidth requirements.

Take Your Online Reputation Seriously

Positive online reviews influence the purchasing decisions of about 90% of shoppers. As such, you need to keep an eye on customer review platforms like Yelp!, Angie’s List and Google Review to see what consumers are saying about your company.

To improve your internet reputation, you must be proactive rather than reacting to problems as they arise. Here are some pointers to help you get started:

• Identify the review platforms that are most relevant to your industry and have the most impact. Create or update your business profile on the sites you’ve identified and any others where customers have left reviews about your company.
• Make a webpage with links to the customer reviews you’d like to showcase. Encourage people to visit that URL by including it in your social media pages and email signature.
• Make it as simple as possible for your customers to provide reviews and suggestions. Provide a link to your review page in your thank-you emails to customers following a sale, and encourage them to leave feedback.
• Be on the lookout for negative feedback on your review platforms, and be sure to address it as soon as possible. Provide excellent customer service, and be sure to appreciate those who take the time to provide positive feedback or observations about your product or service.
• Focus on getting reviews on Google Maps. Consider sending an email to your customers requesting Google reviews.

The Bottomline

Marketing your small business on a budget doesn’t mean cutting corners on high-impact strategies used by larger companies. It simply entails taking a strategic and focused approach to tasks that produce positive outcomes.

As you work to develop your business online, you will most likely find that there is a lot of work ahead of you. However, the strategies that we have provided you with can make a significant difference.

These strategies include email marketing, harnessing social media, creating relevant content, building a website, and managing your online reputation.

Nevertheless, marketing your small business requires plenty of experience and effort. As a business owner, you may already have your fingers in too many pies.

Fortunately, the digital marketing experts at Search Click Grow can help with small business marketing.

Nobody knows digital marketing for small businesses as we do. We can help your company increase brand awareness, reach more customers, and ultimately boost revenue. To learn more about how we can help your small business succeed online, feel free to contact us.