Smarter Marketing for Small Businesses in 2019

Running a successful small business can be incredibly challenging, particularly when it comes to budget-sensitive things like marketing. You need to be agile and future-minded, while simultaneously being cautious when it comes to spending money. That can make things pretty difficult. Thankfully, there are quite a few ways that you can reach your audience without breaking the bank. Below, we’ll address five ways you can ramp up your marketing efforts without blowing your budget. They include content marketing, email marketing and email drip campaigns, website opt in, and social media. Ready, steady, go!

Put Words to Paper (Digitally Speaking)

Marketing, even digital marketing, can be incredibly expensive. However, content marketing is mostly cost free. And, as Disruptive Advertising points out, it “allows you to rank for more keywords, keep your site content fresh, establish expertise, and offer valuable information to your target audience”. Google also rewards high-quality content with higher placement in the SERPs. Imagine being able to achieve all that without spending a dime.

Use Email Best Practices

Email marketing remains one of the most effective tools available to small business owners, but you need to make sure that you’re using it correctly. You need to ensure that you’re sending emails from a recognizable business email address, and that you’re personalizing the message to your intended recipient(s). To make email marketing even more effective, use email drip campaign tools. Thanks to them, you can set the email sending on autopilot: the emails will land in the inboxes according to the schedule and triggers. Then, statistics will give you details on the campaigns. Finally, make sure your content is optimized for reading on a mobile device (PCs are so 2015).

Get Active on Social Platforms

Social media is perhaps the single must-have marketing tool for all small business owners regardless of industry or niche. Your customers expect you to be active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all the rest. Of course, not all platforms are worth your time, and, speaking of time, you don’t have enough of that particular resource to use them all. Find out where your audience spends the most time online and get active there.

Get Website Visitors to Opt In

We talked about email marketing above, but we need to touch on perhaps the most important best practice of all – don’t spam. That means don’t send unsolicited emails. Any emails you send should be to those who have opted into receiving marketing material from you. The best way to do this is to use a double opt-in list on your website, and build trust in your marketing architecture.

Social Media Advertising

While getting active on social networks is imperative, you cannot afford to neglect social media ads. As OutboundEngine points out, “Social media algorithms are constantly evolving. Oftentimes, these changes mean it’s harder to gain traction organically. That’s where paid advertisements and boosted posts can help level the playing field. In fact, paid ads are expected to generate over $19 billion in revenue by 2018.” What social networks, though? Actually, just about all of them have something to offer today, but Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn lead the pack.

There you have them – five tips to help improve your small business marketing without causing your company to go bankrupt. Even social media ads can be tailored to a modest budget, allowing you to reach all segments of your audience with the right message at the right time.