5 WAYS TO MARKET YOUR SMALL BUSINESS IN 2023

Source: Pexels by Anastasia Shuraeva

You’ve got your branding down. You’ve created a website. You’ve got a product or service to offer. So, what now?

Well, you have some marketing to do!

Most businesses have a beautiful brand identity and website, but they suck at using the right marketing channels to attract customers and close sales. So, in today’s guide, we’re going to talk about 5 profitable ways in which you can market your business in 2023.

Without further ado, let’s dive in:

1 – Content Marketing

Bombarding your prospects with ‘buy!’ messages when they’re not ready is a big marketing no-no. You’ll earn a negative reputation for the spammy experience and people will not trust you whatsoever.

This is where content marketing comes in.

This is an approach centred on the constant creation and distribution of valuable content to attract a specific segment of the market – through methods like educational blogs, entertaining video content or free ebooks. 

Many small businesses are sleeping on content marketing and losing a lot of potential customers because of that.

Here’s how you can get ahead with the right content marketing strategy:

• Content marketing is a long game. People won’t trust your brand overnight. But with consistent valuable and highly shareable content, you will become the go-to expert in your field. People will come to you in order to learn about your business/services. How powerful is that?
• Content marketing also allows you to entertain prospective leads and customers, address their concerns and pain points and get them to get to know, trust and like you. This way once they’re ready to buy, you’ll be the first company that they think of.
• Content marketing is not a standalone marketing strategy – it thrives when used in conjunction with other marketing channels in your marketing plan. For example, SEO will only work if you have high-quality content; stuffing keywords in your content will not help at all.

But you cannot just write a blog post and hope to get leads and clients flowing in. You have to devise a proper marketing plan and make content marketing a part of that plan.

2 – Email Marketing

Recent marketing research by Radicati predicted that the number of email users worldwide will top 4.3 billion by 2024. So it makes sense to include email outreach in your marketing plan.

Email is a powerful way to reach people who have shown interest in your product, service or brand.

Here’s how to get started with your email marketing strategy:

1. Choose an email marketing management software.
2. Create an email list using bait content like free ebooks.
3. Add that list of contacts to your email marketing manager.
4. Craft a compelling message and email template.
5. Send your emails out. Make sure to research the best sending time for your industry to boost the open rate.
6. Track and measure your results

Cold emailing is excellent but using content to win warm leads is a far better way to start with email marketing.

3 – Social Media Marketing

Leveraging the use of social networks such as Instagram, YouTube and TikTok to build your brand, grow a community and generate sales is called social media marketing.

A recent study by Statista shows that 38% of US TikTok consumers made a purchase after viewing a product on TikTok. This is a huge number if you think about it.

This number changes with different platforms but is the average percentage of consumers on TikTok and Instagram reels. So, it makes total sense to market your business on these platforms.

TikTok especially supports new creators and you can organically grow a following with the right content. 

Here are some things you can do to improve your social media marketing strategy:

• Integrate your social media marketing plan with other strategies such as content marketing, influencer marketing, community building and even offline marketing.
• Know your audience: if you only have a vague idea of who your audience is, creating tailored content that speaks to their needs will be an uphill battle.
• Create a social media calendar: to build a strong social media brand, you have to post relevant and high-quality content on a consistent basis. Having a schedule ensures that you don’t miss out on your social media activities and you don’t have to dig for content just to publish something out there at the last minute.

4 – Offline Advertising

Many people think of offline advertising as a non-viable marketing or sales channel, but that’s far from the truth. A recent study by PEW showed that 10% of U.S. adults don’t even use the internet. So, there are over 30 million people who may only be reading newspapers and watching television. This means that there’s still an audience that you can reach through offline advertising.

Popular offline advertising methods are:

• Local Events/Giveaways
• Print advertising
• Direct mail
• Cold Calling
• Billboards
• Radio or Television spots

You can also enhance your offline advertising strategy by:

• Pairing it with an online conversion activity, like asking recipients to visit your website or follow you on social media.
• Ensuring branding consistency: your logo, slogan, and other branding elements should be the same across all channels.

5 – Community Building

In 1983, Harley-Davidson was going bankrupt but reemerged as a multibillion-dollar company 25 years later only because of a strong brand community building.

A brand community is a group of people – ideally, your customers and target audiences – who come together to support the brand they like.

Nowadays, almost all the leading brands have an active brand community, including Apple, Walt Disney, Lego, Xbox and Starbucks. These are just a few examples of true community-supported brands.

A strong brand community comes with a lot of great benefits like:

• Brand loyalty
• True user feedback
• A lot of user-generated content
• Marketing efficiency

But remember that:

• Building a community takes time. You have to be patient and consistent with your effort.
• You must engage and interact with your community on daily basis. Acknowledging contributions from the community is not enough; you must engage and humanise your brand by listening, responding, and being transparent.
• The brand community is more about customers than your brand. So, avoid being the pushy salesperson everyone loves to hate. Talk about things other than your brand, product, or service and endeavour to build relationships.

Conclusion

There are severals ways to market your business but you don’t need to adopt every marketing channel to become successful. As a matter of fact, doing so will likely only result in failure.

Instead, evaluate your marketing strategy now and then add or subtract a channel depending on the results.

I hope you learned something from this little guide. Now go and implement these techniques to achieve your business goals.

HAPPY MARKETING!