Last editedJun 20212 min read
Marketing… it might be depicted on TV as a cut-throat industry run by highly skilled teams that live and breathe nothing else, but actually, marketing is an essential feature of every business, even the small ones.
What is a marketing strategy?
Marketing doesn’t happen by magic, it requires a carefully thought-out action plan, i.e., a marketing strategy plan. Marketing strategies come in all shapes and sizes. Giving out leaflets? That’s one marketing strategy example. Making a radio ad? That’s another. Simply put, there are endless types of marketing strategies to consider if you want to boost customer engagement. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for your budget. That’s why it’s so important to pick the best marketing strategies for small business teams – you need the best return on your efforts.
Best types of marketing strategy for small businesses
With so many marketing strategy plan ideas out there, and it can be hard to know what to go for. If you’re a small business, you’ll naturally have some constraints in place so far as budget and manpower is concerned, but there are some highly effective, low-budget marketing strategies even sole traders can make the most of.
Branding
It’s so obvious you might not even consider it a form of marketing, but your brand is a massive part of your marketing strategy. From how you look, how you sound, even the design of your invoices and emails, each is a marketing strategy example. That means you’ll need to decide all of the following:
Your website’s design
Your brand colours
Your logo
Your brand’s tone of voice, i.e., are you a cool “Hi there Jon!” or a professional “Dear Mr. Smith”?
Your storefront design and overall in-store experience
While some of these will require a lot more funding and time than others, some of them are extremely simple. The way you talk to your customers, for example, is your brand voice. All you need for this aspect of your marketing is a keyboard.
Get the word out
It’s one thing to have a website and even a social media page, but it’s another to really let the world know you exist. Don’t settle for one Facebook page and a website, put the work in to spread your name. Probably the clearest market strategy example for this particular method is Google. When you search a business, you expect to see the details you need on the right-hand side. Your business should be no different. Add your details to Google My Business, make sure all this information is also on your social media. Encourage customers to leave reviews on all the regular sites so you leave your footprint there, too. Consider things like influencer marketing if it helps spread your name around the digital world.
Email marketing
Getting customer emails means you have a direct link to encourage them to make future purchases. There are plenty of ways to get emails. Most commonly it’s by offering something in return, like a discount code, eBook, or free trial. Once you have customer emails you can send them all sorts of communications, from updates about great deals to priority access to your new products or services.
Create content
If you want people to find you on Google, Google needs to find you first. The more content you have online, the more proof Google has that you are a meaningful presence. Google bots automatically read every page of your website, and the more pages you have, the more Google will know about your brand. So, try adding a blog to your website to keep content fresh and constantly updated. You can cross post this to your social media and add value to articles with images from your Instagram. Before you know it, you’ll have an omnichannel marketing strategy plan!
We can help
GoCardless helps you automate payment collection, cutting down on the amount of admin your team needs to deal with when chasing invoices. Find out how GoCardless can help you with ad hoc payments or recurring payments.
