If you have a small business, your marketing budget doesn't have to be astronomical. On the contrary, many marketing actions, such as creating a website or social media marketing, for example, are perfectly feasible with a low budget. But given the multitude of marketing strategies that exist, it is sometimes difficult to know where to start. Should you engage in content marketing? Network at local events? Or perhaps, invest in Google Ads advertising campaigns?
To help you make the decision that best suits your needs, we have created a list of 13 marketing strategies for small businesses that you can implement on a modest budget. In this article, you will find all kinds of useful tips, and we are confident that it will also serve as a reference for developing your business.
Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses
Build a Professional Website
Understand Your Market
Design Your Brand Identity
Perfect Your Elevator Pitch
Start a Blog
Embrace Content Marketing
Optimize Your Website's SEO
Try PPC Advertising
Craft Persuasive CTAs (Call to Actions)
Design Effective Landing Pages
Utilize Email Marketing
Request Testimonials from Your Customers
Build Trustworthy Relationships
01. Build a Professional Website
Having online visibility is crucial for promoting and establishing your brand. If you understand the importance of this, you need to create a professional website for your company that serves as the central hub for all information related to your business.
Building your online presence enhances your company's credibility and makes it easy to find on the internet. Additionally, it provides you with the opportunity to create compelling experiences for your potential customers (blog articles, videos, eBooks, online store, course sales, etc.) to connect them with your brand.
02. Understand Your Market
Before implementing any marketing strategy, you need to diagnose your company's situation in relation to your competitors and your target audience. If you know the companies directly competing with you and the motivations of your target audience, you'll have a much more accurate idea of the most suitable marketing strategies for your brand.
To identify your competitors, conduct a SWOT analysis or a comparative evaluation. This analysis helps you develop a more studied marketing plan based on the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and identify the opportunities and threats present in your market.
Simultaneously, conduct market research to understand the tastes, needs, and motivations of the customers you would like to have. This will help you define your target audience, understand the needs your product satisfies, and establish the range of people who could benefit from it. When you gather enough information, you'll be in a position to create what is known as your buyer poeple, a fictional representation of your potential customer(s).
03. Design Your Brand Identity
An important aspect of any SME marketing strategy is developing an attractive brand identity. This involves choosing your brand colors and defining its language, tone, and voice, among other things.
One of the key elements in the brand identity of any company is its logo. A good logo can reinforce customers' perception of your company, help differentiate you from your competitors, and give your business a much more professional look. Since the logo is the face of your brand, it should portray your company and leave a lasting impression on your target audience.
04. Perfect Your Elevator Pitch
Sometimes, you find yourself interacting with customers and other potential partners over the phone or at networking events. To make the most of these opportunities, you need what is known as the elevator pitch – a pre-prepared 30-second speech that succinctly explains what your company does to capture the listener's interest.
A good elevator pitch should be interesting, persuasive, and make it clear that your business is unique. Like the company mission, your elevator pitch should not only highlight the benefits of your product or service but also mention the goal and values of your company.
05. Start a Blog
Creating a blog has been an essential marketing strategy for small businesses for years. The primary goal of a blog is to provide practical and useful information on topics related to your niche. Moreover, it also significantly helps improve the SEO of your website as long as you publish articles and posts regularly.
When you write informative and valuable content, you are showcasing your knowledge of the market and adding value to your readers. This strategy helps cultivate the authority of your brand, improve the perception of your services, and, of course, attract new customers while retaining existing ones.
06. Embrace Content Marketing
Creating a blog is just the first step in a much broader content strategy. Content marketing is the central axis of inbound marketing, a strategy that basically involves making the user find us instead of us actively seeking them.
Always choose the type of content that is most suitable for your market niche and resonates best with your audience. And remember, regardless of the format you choose, your goal is always the same: to provide information that cleverly and subtly draws your potential customers towards your brand.
07. Optimize Your Website's SEO
For your potential customers to find your website, it is essential to optimize its SEO. Also known as search engine optimization, SEO is the process that helps generate traffic to your website by positioning it among the top results on Google and other search engines. As a digital marketing strategy capable of putting your brand at the forefront of the internet, SEO is essential for competing and surviving.
To optimize your SEO, it is necessary, among other things, to use words and phrases with a high search volume on the internet. You can discover these by conducting keyword research on platforms such as Ahrefs, SEMrush, Google Analytics, and others.
It is also essential to take care of technical aspects of SEO, such as improving the loading speed of your website, optimizing its internal structure, and ensuring compatibility with all types of mobile devices.
8. Try PPC Advertising
PPC (Pay Per Click) is a common online advertising model on platforms like Google, Facebook, etc., where the advertiser's fee for an ad is based on the number of times it is clicked. It is a very useful marketing action for small businesses because it contributes to brand awareness and extends its reach.
While PPC advertising is not free, the results that can be achieved with it have a significantly lower cost than other forms of advertising. Even if you have a low marketing budget, we recommend allocating some funds to create a handful of ads. Afterward, you can evaluate whether the expense has been worthwhile in generating quality traffic to your website.
9. Escribir CTAs persuasivos
Calls to action, or CTAs, are very brief phrases that urge your target audience to take action. These calls encourage the user to follow steps that will guide them through the marketing funnel, such as subscribing to a newsletter, trying a product for free, or even making a purchase.
CTAs are small but powerful. In fact, their quality can determine whether a visitor to your website leaves or becomes your customer. If you want to write a persuasive and compelling CTA, make sure it is as brief, clear, and direct as possible. Additionally, it should have a color that helps it stand out prominently from the surrounding content.
10. Design Effective Landing Pages
A landing page is a standalone page designed to sell a specific product or service. Its goal is to guide the user to take a specific action, whether it's generating a lead or making a purchase.
When creating a landing page, make sure it has a great design and compelling text that can convince people to click
11. Utilize Email Marketing
Email marketing is another highly effective and affordable marketing technique for small businesses. Offering content that your users enjoy, such as a quality blog or free resources, will help ensure that your emails land directly in the inbox rather than the spam folder.
We recommend that you make it a habit to send your newsletter weekly so that your users anticipate it with excitement. As your email list grows, you can segment your emails based on the interests and preferences of your subscribers.
Building a substantial subscriber base is not something that happens overnight. To add new subscribers to your email list, encourage them to subscribe to your newsletter as soon as they land on your website. To persuade them, offer a special incentive for subscribing, such as a free eBook or a discount coupon for your online store.
12. Request Testimonials from Your Customers
What a satisfied customer says about you has more value and is more convincing than what you can say yourself. For this reason, it's important to ask for testimonials or opinions from your customers about the positive experience they've had with your company.
Adding testimonials to your website and also to your social media accounts helps build the good reputation of your company.
13. Build Trustworthy Relationships
Remember that as you develop your company's marketing strategy, your professional connections can become loyal ambassadors for your brand. For this reason, it's important to build and maintain relationships with other business partners.
Even if you don't interact with them physically, try to keep regular contact with your partners and be open to collaborating on joint projects that may be relevant. If they appreciate your work, they won't hesitate to recommend you to potential clients.
