3 Steps to Building a Small Business Marketing Strategy

Marketing is a pretty broad term, covering everything from graphic design to web design to social media. You need to get the word out about your business, but if you’re still doing everything yourself, or if your funds are limited and you can’t afford to do all the fancy marketing you’ve seen the big companies doing, don’t worry. It does not mean you’re doomed to failure. It just means you need to be more strategic about your marketing efforts. Let’s go over three ways you can do that.

​Identify Your Ideal Client

I’ve already spent a whole blog post talking about how to identify your ideal client, so I won’t repeat myself, but I will emphasize the importance of knowing your ideal client before you can implement any kind of small business marketing strategy. You need to know where they’re hanging out (both online and off) in order to decide the best use of your time and/or money when it comes to your small business marketing efforts.

Map Out Your Buyer Journey

Marketing means getting your name out there and increasing your brand recognition, and that’s great, but it’s not necessarily going to help you pay the bills without a small business marketing strategy. Don’t just assume people will buy from you as soon as they hear your name. Two things need to happen before they’ll do that: 1) they need to know, like, and trust you, which will require some consistent and strategic marketing; and 2) they need to know how to buy from you. If you make them hunt around to find a “buy” button or your contact page, they’ll lose interest and leave, so make it as easy as possible for your ideal client to buy from you. You’d be surprised how many small business owners make the most crucial step difficult for their prospects.

​In addition to communicating your brand and the value you provide, all your marketing efforts need to lead prospects to the next step in the buyer journey. That might be visiting your website, signing up for your newsletter, or reaching out for a consultation. When you know where your prospects are in the buyer journey when they encounter your brand, you can figure out the next logical step in the buyer journey and make it easy for them to take that step.

​Measure the Results of Your Small Business Marketing Strategy

One of the things that separates marketing from a marketing strategy is that a marketing strategy has goals that can be measured. If you don’t have a way of measuring the success of your small business marketing strategy, it’s not a strategy. You need to be able to measure your results so you can determine whether your marketing efforts are getting the results you need for your small business, or if it’s time to adjust your strategy.

​If you’re looking for more ideas on how to be more strategic when marketing your small business (or in any other aspect of your small business), my book, Be Strategic, Be Intentional, Be Successful, is a great place to start. It leads you through each step of starting and running a successful business, from making sure you have a solid foundation, to marketing and outreach. Even if you’ve been in business for a while, it’s a great way to revisit every aspect of your business strategy to make sure you’re set up for success. I have clients who say they’ve read this book multiple times and they always get something new out of it.