How to Approach Marketing as A Small Business

Write Down Your Goals and Budget

First things first, it is important to write down your goals when it comes to marketing for your small business. Setting up a strategic plan — including a budget — can help you immensely as you first step into the marketing world. Is your aim more website visits? More calls? More online sales? Whatever it is, write it down. A few concrete goals and a realistic budget guide you in the right direction in your marketing journey from the start, and help alleviate the stress of uncertainty. Once you’ve got your goals down, it’s time to look at the different types of marketing you can choose from.

Email Marketing

Did you know, on average, professionals check their emails every 15 minutes? That’s a lot. If you skip out on email marketing, you miss the most important form of modern marketing. All successful companies use email marketing to interact with their audience and reach new clientele; it is an easy and efficient way to reach a vast array of consumers.

Email marketing can sound daunting, especially if you are just starting out, but there are countless tools to make the process simple and easy. Websites like Zoho and Mailchimp are super user friendly, and can guide you through simple email marketing campaigns to boost your business. Set up opt-ins on your website with the help of these platforms and see your email list grow. What’s more, automation makes email marketing relatively hands free, meaning you don’t need to stress about it continuously. Automation saves time and stress, saving your resources for other aspects of your small business.

Social Media

Social media seems to be taking over marketing, especially with things like affiliate marketing and influencer marketing, which have been growing exponentially in the past few years. Social media is its own industry. There are countless companies and brands killing it on social media right now; making it look complicated and out of reach. However, social media marketing can be extremely easy, especially for small businesses. Setting up social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for your business is easy and free.

As far as content, social media posts don’t need to be overly complex or aesthetically pleasing. While your content should stay relevant to your business and industry, there is no need to overcomplicate social media strategy. In fact, many of our most popular posts at Workspace are our most simple. Many of the most effective social media marketing efforts made by small, local businesses center around showing off the office or everyday work life of employees. If your consumer base is local, share content from local places and events your audience will be familiar with. Sharing sneak peaks into your business is also a great way to boost approachability: having an office pizza party to celebrate the weekend? Snap a pic and post to Instagram — this kind of authenticity goes a long way for small businesses.

Create Original Content

In order to market, you need content. Set up a blog or podcast (or both!) to keep your audience engaged and your creativity flowing. There’s no need to post every day or put lots of time and money into creating content, but setting up a resource for your consumers to see what you’re all about is important. Creating a space for original content can be as easy as adding a blog page to your already existing website. You can then use this content for social media posts, as part of email campaigns, etc.

Share what you know

Marketing is about a lot more than just selling. To market effectively, you want to set yourself apart from you competition; what makes your business unique? One way to show this is by sharing your knowledge. You might not be an expert, but chances are you know a thing or two about your industry. Sharing your experiences, knowledge, and insight sets you up as a resource for your audience and boosts your credibility.

Network

We talk a lot about networking on the Workspace blog, and for good reason! Networking is one of the best ways to bring awareness to your business and make valuable connections with other professionals. Word of mouth, especially, is a great tool for small, local businesses. Joining a networking group or reaching out to other local businesses is an excellent way to get your name out there. There are ample networking opportunities for small businesses, which should be taken advantage of.