According to the SBA, 99% of all US businesses are considered small businesses, with over 700 in the US. Small businesses in the US also add around 1.5 Million jobs per year.
A recent statistic is that around 30-32% of small businesses have face periods of shutdown due to coronavirus.
Marketing for small businesses can be tough as many times small businesses don’t have the advertising budget or personnel available that larger businesses have.
Here are some of the best small businesses marketing tips for 2020.
EMAIL MARKETING
You should be utilizing some sort of CRM – customer relationship manager. These are a typically cloud based software systems that track your customers and allow you to send targeted emails to your list. Best practices can be much more complicated, but you can build separate lists of “current customers” vs “potential customers” etc and tailor content to each audience. This is one of most important steps any businesses can take to maximize converting inbound leads into actual customers and promote previous customers to continue doing business with you. Many times special sales events or offers are sent to your lists. Hubspot , Zoho and Mailchimp are some of the most common. When paired with email platforms such as mailchimp and web analytics provided by Google, you can build a basic but yet very successful inbound marketing program. 2020 will see an increased level of adoption by small firms that want to take advantage of the benefits email marketing provides as well as the changed post-covid19 landscape which sees online sales and interaction become an even more important component of your business.
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Mobile Friendly Marketing
Mobile web traffic typically is around 50% of overall web traffic and will likely increase in the years to come. The widespread use of mobile devices means that your company is missing out on potential sales if your website and marketing materials such as emails are not mobile friendly. Keep in mind that google will penalize your rankings if they notice your site is not performing well on mobile.
A clunky mobile web experience is a very fast way to leave a terrible impression on a potential customer who otherwise might have converted as an inbound lead.
Spread out the Spend
We always recommend to spread out your marketing spend across multiple platforms, media types and creative. It’s easier to put the vast amount of your budget in one place, but this would be a strategic mistake as certain demographics will have zero exposure to your content. Instead, experiment with as many platforms and marketing channels as you can. As you refine your marketing plan, you’ll start to discover what works and what doesn’t, and at this point you can move more budget into one channel vs another, but without experimenting constantly you will miss out on a lot of new demographics.
Customer Service and Quick Replies
It can be hard for small businesses to constantly respond quickly to messages and inquiries, but this is one of the most important actions you take. Many potential customers might reach out to several firms providing the same product or service and there is a good chance the company that provides a quote back the fastest will get the business.
Experiment with Special offers
Make an event out of everything! Notice how that in every automotive dealership commercial you see there is mention of a “sales event going on right now”. This is a strong and effective way to drive action. Consider having special sales events in conjunction with holidays, and strive to have a real offer that people would care about. Utilize all your marketing channels to promotes your sales events. A call to action mentioning the event only runs for a specific amount of time can be a great way to drive action especially if the offer is significant discount or other perk. Like any other form of marketing, experiment with different types of offers and events. Some will undoubtedly work better than others, these are ones you focus on for future sales events and promotions.
Broadcast and Outdoor
These forms of marketing have been around forever yet are still very effective. Depending on your budget, air time for small businesses on local tv and radio is actually quite cost effective and can represent one of the most effective means to market your brand. If your budget is more limited consider creating one television commercial that isn’t anchored to a specific time period. Meaning no “Merry Christmas” etc, this was you can use the commercial for a longer period of time. Radio ads can generally be created relatively easily from a tv commercials, so by producing a tv commercial you are only a few steps away from also having a radio commercial. For larger budgets, create a new set of broadcast advertising each time you have a new sales event. Try to always use the best possible deal or offer that you can, as this can be a great driver of traffic and sales
Outdoor billboards are also a great way to promote your brand, just make sure you plan how long you plan to keep a billboard up. Typically you will get charged per month plus the creative. If you want to keep a billboard up for a long period of time make sure the creative on it doesn’t tie the billboard to specific time period. We recommend making a new billboard at least once every 12-18 months. Billboards will eventually fade due to the UV degradation, and there is nothing worse than seeing your brand on a heavily faded billboard.
Google, Facebook and Other reviews
Encourage customers to leave reviews for your business on google, facebook and any other site that might be industry specific. This will drastically help you convert impressions online. The more positive reviews you have the more likely cross shoppers will buy from you. It’s possible to tie small incentives towards customers leaving reviews if you are struggling to build the number of reviews. Often just a simple email or mention of leaving a review will prompt customers who have had a positive experience to write one.
SEO
This one seems to be on all our lists, but make no mistake this is one of the most important steps you can take to build your business. There are still so many 1999 looking websites out there that have terrible SEO and hurt your business more than they help it. A bad first impression from a potential customer seeing your awful looking website will push them to a competitor. You need to make it a priority to have a good looking and SEO friendly website. Get in the habit of making the occasional industry related blog post, and make sure your pages are SEO friendly. Many other types of marketing will push users to your website, when they get there you want your website to be an asset, not a hindrance to converting these leads.
Social Media
There are still a lot of businesses that aren’t using social media and this is a mistake. No matter what city or town your business is in, lots and lots of people that buy from you utilize social media. You want a presence wherever your customers are and this means at minimum making a linkedin, facebook, instagram and google maps profile. Share content on all of these platforms at least once a month, preferably once a week at minimum. You’d be surprised how many people will follow you for updates, special offers and anything else you might post. Overtime this audience will grow which means your posted content is being more widely distributed.
Community Events and Organizations
Relationships are nearly everything, particularly for small businesses, it’s important to be involved in the communities that you are in. This means trying to take part in community events and being apart of community business or industry specific organizations. You’d be surprised at the number of connections you’ll make and new customers that will develop from this. Often, referrals become more common as you get to know more people within your community. Reward loyal local customers as well with special offers and incentives at these events.
There are just a few of the thousands of small business marketing tips that can help your small business grow in 2020 but they are some of the most common that we see underutilized. Particularly your website, you absolutely have to have a mobile friendly website in 2020. Websites cost less than you might think and it is truly an investment that will pay off over the years. No matter how you decide to implement your marketing plan, always be willing to try something new. Often it is a new marketing idea you don’t think will work that somehow manages to convert tons of new customers.
Volan Media is a Knoxville, Tennessee based advertising and marketing firms that specializes in video production, broadcast marketing planning, website design and virtual reality production. If we can help, let us know! We always enjoy talking with businesses owners and learning how we can help grow your business.
