4 Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

You’ve started your business and now it’s time to get the word out, because people can’t buy your great products/services if they don’t know you exist. In order to let people know all the awesome ways you can help them, you need to do some marketing, but these days, marketing includes everything from blogging to videos to public speaking. You could easily spend all your time marketing and not have any time left for your clients, but I have four tips to help you develop a marketing strategy that will get results for your small business.

Know Your Audience

The first step to creating an effective marketing strategy is understanding who your audience is. The world is huge and the internet is almost as big, so the first thing you need to identify is who your target audience is so you can find out where they hang out (both online and off). ​

​You also need to understand the pain points you’re solving for your clients so you can talk about them in all your marketing materials. Understanding, not just the pain points, but how that pain affects your prospects’ lives and drives them to find solutions is key to getting in front of them at the right time and in the right place, and saying the right thing to convince them to work with you.

​Put the Pain Points Front and Center

Once you have a solid grasp of the problems you solve for your clients and how much that’s worth to them, you need to make sure those pain points (and your solution) are communicated throughout all your marketing materials. Make it clear you understand where they’re coming from, and that you have a way to make their lives better in tangible ways.

​Know What Works … and What Doesn’t

Any time you do any marketing, you need to be able to measure the results. Know where all your leads and clients are coming from so you can repeat the actions that brought them to you in the first place. If giving presentations tends to get people on the phone with you, but they’re not signing on to work with you, then you need to work on your sales call. If you’re giving presentations everywhere you can, but no one is reaching out to learn more after your presentations, then you either need to tweak the presentation or consider trying a different marketing channel.

​Understand the Power of Relationships

​While advertising tends to focus on getting people to buy, marketing is more about building relationships so people get to know, like, and trust you before your advertising (or sales call) can be effective. Marketing can focus on building a relationship between prospects and your brand, or building a relationship between you and your prospects. After all, as small business owners, we often are our brands, and especially in this Digital Age, your personal brand is at least as important as your company’s brand. So decide what represents that brand. What would make your target audience want to work with that brand?

Helping small business owners develop and implement their marketing strategies is one of my specialties. Whether you just started your business, or you’ve been in business for a while and are struggling to get the results you need, I can help, so schedule a FREE clarity call to see if coaching is the right next step for you.