Riddhi Chhabria is the founder and CEO of All Stars Digital, A Digital Marketing and Brand Scaling agency in Mumbai, Delhi, and Ahmedabad. She has a Master’s degree in Marketing from NYU and is a bright and emerging Entrepreneur and Digital Marketer. She believes that social media is an asset for businesses to level up and has effectively scaled business for 200+ brands in different industries.
When you are a small business, the success and growth of your business have a lot to do with its marketing plan. You need to attract more and more customers to stay operational and grow. However, smaller budgets can put a limitation on what you can do and the period for the return on investment. However, in today’s digital age, there are various low-cost options and smart tactics you can use for marketing your small business efficiently.
And this of course begins with devising a good marketing strategy that takes in different aspects of your small business. Such a marketing strategy will help your business attract the right customers, achieve sales goals and branding initiatives, and grow. Here are 8 marketing strategies to scale your small business and set you up for success.
Establish a brand: The first thing is to establish a brand identity. It is very important for your existing as well as potential customers to know who you are and what you do. Once you have decided that, match it with a suitable logo, name, color story, imagery, and aesthetics. All of this when put together will convey your brand’s story to its customers and help you find a connection with your niche customers. The logo and brand imagery should then go on everything from your business cards and packaging to your website and email signatures.
Know your customer: The marketing you do for your business needs to be targeted to your specific audience and not be generalized. This is because of the sheer idea that there is no one-size-fits-all in marketing strategies. They need to be targeted towards a specific audience. Every business caters to a specific niche market and therefore requires a marketing plan and strategy that is specific to their needs and goals. Before you decide on your marketing strategy and ideas, it is crucial to understand who your audience is by understanding their demographics, age, location, etc.
Create a website: The first thing potential customers see when they come across a company is its website. This just tells us how important a company’s website is, even though few brands put in the effort on their websites to make a solid first impression. You want your website to be simple and easy to navigate and provide your customers with all the information they need. If you do not have a website yet, it’s time to build one and make sure it is mobile-friendly and loads quickly.
Put SEO to use: Google searches are the most prevalent way through which traffic is directed to a website. Since the Google algorithms keep changing, a company needs to make sure to keep their page keywords optimized in order to hit high rankings on searches. Having your website on the first page of Google search results highly increases your chances of that website getting clicked on.
Invest in Content Marketing: Content marketing includes creating and sharing helpful material that is focused on your audience and serves the purpose of increasing customer acquisition for your business. It is a very effective tool to be used to increase your reach, have a conversation with your customers, market your product, and boost sales. Blogging and Influencer marketing is one of the most common forms of content marketing. It also includes having an active solid digital presence on relevant social media platforms.
Use Advertisements: Another great way to target a specific audience at specific social media channels is by using Ads, such as Facebook Ads. It is one of the most convenient and effective ways to advertise your business to a larger audience at low costs. You can advertise your business by focusing on specific demographics such as age, sex, interests, locations, etc. It is a relatively inexpensive way to market your business and is great to reach a large number of potential customers in a short span of time.
Use Email Marketing: Using email marketing is a highly advantageous marketing strategy. Sending emails to your existing as well as potential customers can be automated and is easy to do. Email marketing costs very little, provides instant communication, and can help you reach a large number of customers. Once you have email addresses added to your list, it is vital for you to provide interesting, valuable, and relevant content to your list so your emails get clicked and do not just end up in spam emails. Make sure to regularly keep your email list clean by using verifying tools. Email marketing is a great way to strengthen your relationship with your customers, boost brand awareness, and attract new customers.
Use reviews and testimonials: Potential customers love reviews and testimonials. Reviews and testimonials enhance the credibility of your product and prevent buyer’s remorse. The best part about using reviews and testimonials in your marketing strategy is that they are free yet extremely effective. Ask your happy customers for reviews, feedback, and testimonials via emails, on social media, or even in person and share it with your audience. It is a great idea to display your feedback, reviews, and testimonials on the landing pages of your website. Your social media is another excellent place to share customer feedback. Make sure to make the images eye catching and shareable.
While as a small business owner, putting your money into marketing your business may feel like a chance, it is one of the most important and effective tools that you have at your disposal to leverage your business. The best way to do this is to start by working on the above-mentioned resources and engage with your audience as much as possible to increase your reach. Here’s a tip, if there’s a budget constraint, make the best use of what you have, encourage word of mouth marketing, give discount to existing customers and references, whatsapp your existing customers whenever you have new products and know that there’s no harm in asking your friends and family to talk about your brand and promote it.