As a small business owner, you have a lot of competition. There are around 32 million small businesses in the United States.

In order to be successful and beat out your competition, you must invest in marketing. The idea of creating a marketing strategy can be overwhelming and you may not know where to start.

It doesn’t matter if you studied marketing in college or if you have a small budget; the tips in this article are going to help you push your company to the next level. Read on so you know what small business marketing steps to take next.

Know Your Audience

The first marketing tip is knowing your audience. Who is your ideal client?

If you’re offering residential lawn care, then you’ll want to grab the attention of homeowners and landlords. You’ll then need to figure out where they get their information.

How are you going to get your business information to them? Find out where they hang out and what their hobbies are.

You need to put yourself in a position where you can help them solve a problem. Another example would be if your small business installs HVAC systems.

Are people in your area having a hard time keeping their homes cool in the summer? Or maybe they are having issues with high humidity levels.

You need to know this information about your audience so you can better serve them and market to them. If you’re marketing a solution to a problem that your ideal client doesn’t have, you’ll be wasting your time.

Build a Website

The next step when it comes to a marketing strategy for small businesses is creating a website. Now it’s a bit more complicated than it might sound.

You must have a working website that is easy to navigate. You don’t want your clients to get frustrated and leave your site.

All the information your customers may need should be laid out in an organized fashion that is easy to read. Be sure there aren’t any glitches before launching your website as well.

It’s likely that there are other companies in your area that offer similar services. When someone searches for home services, you want your website to be the first one to pop up.

This requires you to do some research. You’ll need to include keywords throughout your website to make it SEO-friendly. The more quality content you provide, the more traffic you’ll have to your site.

Get On Social Media

It’s crucial that you get your company on as many social media platforms as possible. It’s affordable, but you will have to invest some time into it.

People tend to overthink social media, and while there are strategies out there that can help you grow your following; the algorithms are different for each platform. One post that gets a lot of views or likes on TikTok may not reach as many people on Facebook.

It’s a lot of trial and error and figuring out what your audience likes to see. When it comes to marketing small businesses on social media, it’s crucial that you don’t get discouraged.

Offer Rewards

Another small business marketing tip that will help you find new customers and keep old ones coming back is to offer rewards or a loyalty program. Back to the lawn care business example, you could offer your clients half off their fifth lawn mowing appointment.

If you’re installing HVAC systems, you could offer one free maintenance check a year. Everyone is always looking for a good deal and marketing rewards and discounts will grab people’s attention.

Look at Reviews

As a business owner, it’s crucial that you look at your online reviews and encourage your clients to leave them on all platforms. Take the time to respond to as many reviews as you can.

If someone said they had a great experience, write them back thanking them for their loyalty. This shows your clients and future customers that you care about them personally, not just about making money.

Seeing a negative review can be discouraging; however, how you handle the situation is key. Respond to unhappy clients and ask if they would be willing to speak with you offline so you can work out the issue. This shows anyone who reads the review that you genuinely care and didn’t try to make excuses.

The problem could have been out of your control or it could be an issue you need to address with your staff later. You can’t make everyone happy, but as long as you’re doing good honest work and treating your customer’s rights, you’ll have more positive reviews and the negatives will fade away.

Send Emails

Our last small business advertising tip is to send out emails. This can be tricky as you don’t want to send too many and annoy your clients, but you also want them to know about the services and deals you’re running.

You want to send just enough to keep them engaged. Setting up an automated system to send emails out regularly can help save you some time, too.

Small Business Marketing

Whether you just opened or you’ve been running your business for years, creating updated and new marketing strategies can be challenging. There are so many things to think about when you’re running your company and it’s vital that you don’t put small business marketing on the back burner.

Don’t continue to struggle with your marketing plan. We work will all types of companies and our experts will help you grow your clientele. Give us a call today to get started!