Marketing Strategy Plan For Small Business – As a small business owner, you already know you need a solid marketing plan, but you may not know how to create an effective strategy. Should you stick with your tried and true marketing strategies or combine them with a new approach? How do you select and build a marketing strategy that works for your small business when there are dozens of options?
Here’s what you need to know to create and implement a successful marketing strategy for your small business.
Marketing Strategy Plan For Small Business
Creating a marketing strategy for a small business can be overwhelming, especially when it comes to your online marketing options. There are many different methods and hundreds of articles claiming to know the “most effective” strategy.
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The truth is, the best marketing strategy for your small business depends on your specific audience and your business model.
Before we discuss how to choose the right strategy for your business, let’s take a look at six of the best small business marketing tools.
Email marketing allows small businesses to connect directly with customers and prospects who have expressed explicit interest in your business. It is one of the most effective strategies for building a relationship that turns interested prospects into actual customers. As a small business owner, your email list, made up of email addresses given to you by your prospects (or potential customers) and customers, is one of your most valuable assets. This is why building an email list should be a priority.
Social media marketing can help your small business reach thousands of customers and potential customers. However, many small business marketers are overwhelmed by the number of different platforms. Should you be on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or Twitter?
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Instead of trying to be active on every platform, find one or two platforms where your customers are most active and focus there. Share informative and useful posts related to your industry, not just product content meant to drive sales.
Content marketing is about creating and sharing useful and thoughtful content related to your brand or your audience’s interests. This content should establish your business as an expert in your field and show customers that you can be trusted. For example, a restaurant could share content related to takeout safety or cooking tips, while a dentist’s office could create guides on how to floss or when to take kids to their first dental appointment.
Pay-per-click marketing allows you to create targeted ads that show your business to Internet users through search engines like Google or Bing. These ads are displayed on websites, often at the top of the webpage, embedded in the content or in the sidebar of a webpage. When you use PPC, you choose terms that you think customers are likely to use when searching for the product or service your business offers. Although PPC is a bit complicated, especially for beginners, it can be a very effective strategy for driving both website traffic and foot traffic.
Referral marketing rewards current customers for recommending your product or service to their friends and family. For example, you can offer a 10 percent discount to a current customer and their friends if they use a specific link or code. Referral marketing is a low-cost strategy that encourages word-of-mouth marketing, one of the most reliable and effective marketing strategies for small businesses.
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Event marketing is an experiential marketing strategy in which brands promote their business through in-person or digital events such as classes, conferences, or happy hour events. Connecting with people in person or at events can create a stronger bond that can be leveraged to drive sales, increase brand trust, and build brand awareness.
Now that we’ve covered some basic small business marketing strategies, let’s talk about how to figure out which marketing strategy will be successful for your brand.
Your marketing strategy should be a long-term plan to help your business reach more customers and build a sustainable business. Building a successful small business marketing strategy starts with understanding where you are and where you want your business to go.
Before creating or revamping your company’s marketing strategy, the first step is to understand your marketing strengths and weaknesses. Make a list of current and previous marketing strategies you’ve tried, including results and costs. Next, write down your current marketing assets: Do you have a strong email list, a large Facebook following, or a successful advertising campaign? These details will guide your next steps.
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Who is your main audience? Who do you want to target? Many small business owners assume that their current audience is their ideal audience, which is not always the case.
Start by asking what problem your product solves, then identify who is most likely to need that solution. Then compare that audience to your current customer base. You may find that your current audience is not the best for your product. Conducting market research can provide additional insight into the identity of your ideal audience and thus your target customers.
Small businesses do not have unlimited resources and must be careful where they focus attention and resources. Spending $100,000 on PPC and an ad campaign might bring in tons of customers, but it’s unlikely to fit into a small business’s marketing budget.
Write down your monthly marketing budget and consider what resources you have available, such as a marketing platform. Include the amount of money you can spend specifically on marketing initiatives and the internal resources you can rely on, such as an email list or an employee with experience in social media marketing.
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Now that you understand where you stand, who you want to target, and your available resources, it’s time to figure out which of the strategies in the first section are easiest to implement.
For example, if your business has a dedicated social media following, a target audience of 20-35 year olds, and a low monthly budget, then referral marketing may be the best option. It requires little initial investment and can increase the power of a dedicated fan base. On the other hand, if you have a strong email list but haven’t been sending regular email campaigns, it might be time to invest in an email marketing course to better leverage your list.
Once you have a strategy in place, outline your goals. Do you want to drive sales of a specific product, increase website traffic, or increase brand awareness? Goals should be specific, such as “Increase sales of product X by 20% in the next three months.”
As a small business owner, you likely have a lot on your plate. It can take a long time to spend money and resources on a new marketing strategy, only to find out that it is not as effective as you had hoped.
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Instead of getting frustrated, focus on trying different approaches. If your content marketing isn’t converting, research whether the content is useful to your target audience and where they are in the buying process. If your email marketing isn’t increasing sales-qualified leads (SQL), run A/B testing: try different subject lines, reword your CTA, or send emails at different times of the day .
The right small business marketing strategy can make a huge difference in the success of your small business. While there are many ways to market your products and services, the above strategies are often the most effective for small businesses. Start by choosing one or two strategies and then experiment to find out what works well for your business.
If you need help building a solid foundation for your small business’s digital marketing strategy, check out our Small Business Marketing Getting Started Guide. An effective marketing strategy underlines business growth and often its very existence. From meeting the needs of your target audience and helping you build brand loyalty to determining the right prices for your products and services, the right strategy maximizes your chances of success in the business world.
A marketing strategy is a company’s long-term plan of action that aims to promote its products and services, gain a competitive advantage, and meet its business goals.
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However, don’t confuse marketing strategy with a marketing plan. The main goal of a marketing plan is to attract new customers and convert them into loyal buyers. Because your marketing plan should be firmly rooted in your company’s value proposition, it helps you market your products or services to consumers in a more compelling way.
Although marketing strategies and marketing plans play a crucial role in the success of your business, there are several important distinctions to be aware of between them.
The main difference between the two concepts is that a marketing strategy is a long-term idea, while a marketing plan usually deals with short-term issues.
Marketing strategies tend to encompass a company’s mission as a whole, including what they stand for and what they hope to achieve in the future. Meanwhile, marketing plans typically cover the various logistics of marketing campaigns, such as specific types of data and market research.
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Your company’s overall strategy will help inform your marketing plan, which means it’s critical to craft your strategy
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