10 Essential Marketing Tips for Small Business

10 Essential Marketing Tips for Small Business

1. Pay Attention to Your Target Audiences

There’s indeed a difference when it comes to an established corporation and a small business. Of course, it’s wise to dream big and envision something you want to achieve. But it’s best to be realistic and to weigh in your financial capabilities, your marketing plan, and all of the constraints.

A common marketing mistake small business owners encounter is first to cast a broad net to capture as many leads as possible.

‍Yes, this applies seamlessly for financially capable companies that may appeal to a wider market. As opposed to these approaches, smaller businesses should develop a niche and leverage the opportunity.

Try drilling deeper to understand your audiences’ needs, priorities, and concerns. A great way to envision a buyer persona is, first by defining the targeted demographics, interest, and buying patterns. As you explore these personas, you can compartmentalize a list of competent marketing strategies to tackle the problems. A key tip is to be cognizant of the customers’ intention, should he or she requires nurturing, your marketing approach should be personalized to fit.

2. Emphasize on Your Value Proposition

Marketing primarily revolves around creating values for customers. Needless to say, your focus is to present a compelling value proposition to differentiate you from your competitors. Let’s say you’re a start-up vegan beauty company that stands by cruelty-free products, your value proposition should emphasize on a declaration of intent to firmly strategies your position.

Regardless if it’s the concern of how you operate or any of the sustainable efforts you’ve contributed to strengthening your point...

it's always an advantage to project your thoughts in an action rather than just words.

The trajectory of value should always appeal to the customer in the most straightforward approach and land on the customer’s strongest decision-making driver.
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3. Don’t Compromise on Quality

It’s obvious that a small start-up business emphasizes mostly on speed, but it doesn’t mean you should compromise on the quality. While it’s undoubtedly hard to balance on this grey line, it’s not impossible.

High-quality and comprehensive marketing content is far more valuable than five average mediocre write-ups.

Try to focus on providing insightful information that is useful for guiding prospects along the consumer journey. Perhaps, emphasize on content marketing that is transparent, authentic, and truthful to lead your brand into a quality engagement with consumers.

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4. Consistency Is the Key to Success

It’s hard enough to keep your content on fleek, not to mention to keep it up with the trend. As challenging as it may seem, to be consistent with what you’re doing is not as tough as long as you believe in it. Assuming you know your audiences and have gotten a hang of creating valuable content, it’s time for you to keep up with the pace.

In the age of transparency, consumer craves for authenticity more than anything.

Yes, clickbait might get you somewhere if you’re lucky but luck is utterly subjective. The best way to keep up with your content persona is to gain trust from your network through sincerity and expertise. Once you gained momentum, be consistent to update your audiences with the freshest and latest content. Just take note that the results may not be instant, but it is capable to drive productive buyer engagement over time.

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5. Blend in With The Trend

Digital marketing is one of the best marketing options for small business owners. Mainly because it’s cost-efficient and the flexibility of customization. That said, you’ll need to be vigilant to keep up with the demand in the digital world.

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Beyond cold-calling, a more effective marketing tip for small business owners is to incorporate social media into refining their marketing strategies.

Try blending into the trend and gain traction organically through the constant update of engaging content including infographics, animations, and interactive videos to get your message across more efficiently. In fact, recent marketing statistics prove that video marketing is far more impactful and is proven to be a perfect supplement to a business marketing strategy.

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6. Utilize Search Engine Marketing (SEM)‍

Organic traffic is ideal, but given the time and budget constraints, many business owners would turn their heads to paid ads. The consistent effort of publishing quality content would be the most cost-efficient option, however, it takes a longer time and effort to see a result. Plus the constant evolving of search engine algorithms makes it even tougher for a small business to gain a competitive edge organically over the pioneers in the industry.

That’s when SEM comes in play especially if your priority is the sales landing pages.

It’s a pivot element that is normally connected to conversion-focused landing pages that drives these web traffic into something more tangible. And the most commonly used paid ads include Google ads, Instagram ads, Youtube ads, and more. While it may seem like a financial burden, it generates a more noticeable return-of-investment than you expected. Here’s how to save on online marketing without any string attached.

7. Accept and Embrace Creative Marketing Automation

It’s not that you’re incapable of carrying out a task but it’s simply impossible to do everything on your own. Fortunately, the convenience of automation support is here to drive efficiency and you can call it a quit from the overwhelmed responsibilities.

If you’re in search of something that is equally efficient and money-saving, automated marketing is ideal.

What it does is far more comprehensive and you don’t need to exhaust your manpower for nanoscopic tasks. It’s especially effective to eradicate any repetitive tasks like manually sending welcome emails, newsletters, or updates on new product launches. Don’t be penny-pinching trying when it comes to marketing automation, invest in a good automation system and it’ll bring you far and beyond.

8. Always Keep an Open-Mind with Partnership

Partnership or collaboration is one of the best strategies to help you can brand exposure. Whether it’s an official or off-the-record type of partnership, collective collaboration can spur creativity and inspiration to transform your day-to-day operations.

As you work closely together with other small businesses or established companies, you’ll gain access to the different techniques and business tools you might not be aware of and taps on a wider pool of networks related to your niche. In return, you can enjoy a fresher perspective in handling your business that can save you money and time.

Exposure is what small business owners crave the most and collaborating with other businesses can bridge the gap.

‍With every person you’ve come across, your network grows and it opens up a possibility for you to expand your alliances in the most positive course of action.

9. Remembers Customer Engagement

When you show that you care for your customer, you’re almost there to score your business a loyal customer. With the power of online reviews and referrals, businesses now in general are forced to look closely into customer engagement to boost a feasible positive brand image. So, as a small business, you should commit to developing and monitoring the reviewing platforms like Google reviews, TripAdvisor, and Facebook to maximize the chances of referral.

Nothing is perfect and not all comments or reviews are flawless.

That’s when you need to start accepting your flaws and make an effort to rectify the mistakes. Try to respond the best you could without aggravating the situation. The internet is dark sometimes and all you need is to focus on the good and your effort will triumph eventually.

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10. Save on your Paid Ads with Aspire

Did you know? Aspire is the only business account to offer cashback on online marketing and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) spend.

The Aspire Card is a free virtual card for businesses for all their expenses across multiple currencies at the best rates. It is automatically linked to the Aspire Business Account and offers businesses with 1% cashback on digital marketing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) spend. With no annual fee or hidden charges, the card has low transaction fees and transparent rate. The card offers rich features such as best security standards, user identification, expense categorization and is integrated with Google Pay.

List of qualified merchants can be found here.

Start making those savings today

The Aspire Account, is a business debit account for modern entrepreneurs and digital-savvy businesses. It promotes easy user experience, fast account openings, and transparent fee structures. Opening an account can be done online in 5 minutes for free.