As a small business owner, one of your main goals is to find customers so you can generate income. There’s no better way to do this than advertising your products and services.
However, you probably don’t have enough money to spend on expensive advertising strategies and don’t have enough time in doing marketing yourself. Fortunately, there are a lot of cost-effective business marketing strategies you can adopt in order to remain ahead of the game amongst your competitors.
Read this comprehensive article to learn about the 20 most effective advertising strategies you can use for the success of your small business. It also tackles some relevant information you need to know, starting with the best reasons to advertise your business.
Why You Need to Advertise Your Business
1. Attract Potential Customers
The present market is always changing in terms of trends, competition, customer needs, and buying habits. With advertising, you can target these specific changes in behaviors and show consumers that you are at the top of the line.
Furthermore, new consumers are moving in and out of your area constantly. Take advantage of this influx by advertising your campaign to reach these potential customers.
2. Create Brand Awareness
If you’re looking for a way to effectively tell your brand story and message, look no further than advertising. It provides your target market with relevant information about your products and services thus making them more likely to buy from your business in the future.
3. Increase Your Credibility
The use of advertisements in your brand campaign shows your consumers and your competitors that you are ready to operate your business. This ultimately makes it easier to communicate your message forward and get the attention of your intended customers.
4. Stay Relevant and Up-to-Date
With so many different products out in the market, consumers may find it hard to keep up with the latest trends.
Fortunately, you can use advertising to inform them about a new product or event that is ready to be launched. By doing so, you can ensure your company stays relevant and up-to-date with trends.
5. Generate Foot Traffic
Advertising has the ability to capture customer’s attention which makes them more likely to visit your store. Through this, not only can you generate a significant amount of foot traffic to your business but also expand your base of shoppers.
6. Increase Your Sales
When consumers see positive and strong advertisements, they are more likely to invest and choose your business.
That’s why it’s essential to use advertising in your business campaigns so you can attract potential customers and eventually increase your revenue.
7. Beat the Competition
With so many available options out in the market today, consumers like to compare different products before making a purchase decision to ensure they’re getting the most out of their money. Through effective advertising, you can convince consumers to invest in you thus beating your rivals.
Factors to Consider Before Advertising Your Business
By now, you’re probably considering using advertisements for your business campaign as it provides you with many advantages. However, you should know these 4 essential factors before advertising.
1. Target Market
You should identify who your target market is to effectively communicate and motivate them to invest in a certain product or a service that you provide.
Ask these following questions to learn more about them:
- What is their demographic?
- Where do they live?
- What other types of products or services do they purchase?
Overall, the more you learn about your consumers, the more you can tailor your ads specifically according to their interests.
2. Goals and Objectives
You’re really not spending your money wisely when you launch an advertising campaign without having a specific goal or objective in mind.
Identify whether you want to attract new consumers or increase sales to your existing customers. You may also want to think about if you just simply want to clear out your inventory at the end of the season.
Before you develop an ad, you should know what kind of action you want your consumers to take. For instance, a brand campaign designed to instantly increase sales and profits is different from one which requires adding people to your email list. Ultimately, you should aim to develop goals and objectives that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.
3. Medium
Knowing your target market and campaign objectives can help you determine which medium to choose for your advertisements.
If you’re looking for new customers, you may want to consider digital ads on websites. But if you want to boost sales immediately, you can try pay-per-click advertising on different search engines and social media. However, try looking outside the internet as you can still benefit from print media and direct mail campaigns.
There’s truly a lot of options available today and identifying which medium to choose for ads should be included in your business marketing strategy.
4. Budget
Ideally, you should receive a positive return on your advertisements but not all campaigns are successful. When making an investment on ads, it’s a must to plan your budget accordingly so you’re not risking more money than you can afford.
20 Proven Business Marketing Strategies That Can Help You Achieve Success
Now that you know the essentials of advertising, it’s time to take a look at these 20 proven business marketing strategies. These will help you communicate your message in the best possible way and lead your company to the path of success.
1. Create a Website
If your small business doesn’t own a website yet, you are certainly missing out on a large amount of potential customers.
According to statistics, about 56% of the population in the world already uses the internet–that’s a whopping 4.3 billion people. Today is the right time to create a website in order to target this significant number of people. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to sell your products on your website. You can simply provide relevant information about your brand message, expertise, and prices thus putting your business in the global market.
Tip: Always review the data and analytics of your website in order to measure its success, such as website traffic and conversions.
2. Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Your work doesn’t end the moment you create a website for your small business. Make sure you have enough, continuous web traffic in your site to generate income and valuable leads.
One way to do this is through the use of search engine optimization or SEO. The goal is to simply rank your website high on Google search results by optimizing relevant keywords. As a result, consumers can easily see your website thus significantly increasing your click-through rate and website traffic.
3. Integrate Content Marketing
Integrating content marketing in your website can provide many benefits to your business.
Through valuable and relevant content, you can attract and retain a well-defined audience and eventually generate customer conversions.
However, you may find content marketing difficult at first as it requires every element to be right. This should include quality content, relevant topics, and consistent content promotion. If you do all of these properly, you can enjoy long-term and sustainable growth of your business in terms of visitors and leads.
Did You Know? Content is not limited to blog posts. Online courses, podcasts, and videos are also considered as content.
4. Grow Your Social Media Reach
Due to the popularity of the internet, around 3.2 billion people are now reported to use social media and the number is still continuously growing. It has indeed dominated the world so it’s a must to establish the presence of your business in this free platform to gain more audience.
Try posting engaging and informative content on different social media platforms to effectively promote your products or services. You can also talk to your customers and easily answer their queries online, thus allowing you to build a meaningful relationship with them.
5. Try Facebook Ads
Facebook is an inexpensive and effective way to market your products or services online.
With Facebook Ads, you can target a specific audience based on their location, age, gender, interests, and online behavior. They are also very easy to create. All you need is an inviting headline, a brief description, a captivating image, and an external link to connect to your website.
Furthermore, you can easily run and test out multiple ads through Facebook Ads Manager. This ultimately allows you to produce a winning solution and generate revenue without formal expertise in advertising.
If you decide that Facebook is the right channel for you, I’d recommend using a tool like AdEspresso to run your campaigns and speed up your journey to positive ROI.
6. Consider Instagram Ads
However, Facebook is not the perfect fit for every company.
If you have a business that incorporates strong visuals in your campaign, consider trying Instagram Ads instead. As a subsidiary of Facebook, it uses the same database to target a specific audience that is better suited for visual sales.
Did You Know? According to Instagram, an estimated 80% of its users follow a business account.
7. Rank Your Google My Business Listing
Google My Business (GMB) is one of the most cost-effective advertising strategies to use for your small business. It allows you to reach consumers near your area thus giving you immediate credibility and visibility on Google at that specific location.
Overall, GMB is extremely beneficial for small companies who specifically want to target local clients.
8. Use Google AdWords
Despite being expensive, you should still consider using Google AdWords in your business campaign as it can be a very powerful marketing tool if used correctly.
Google assigns a quality score to your advertisement which depends on its relevance, click-through rate, and landing page. This quality score determines the costs you need to pay to display your ad. The higher your quality score, the lower the bid cost.
Furthermore, AdWords provides you immediate results that can scale as big as your budget allows.
Tip: Pair Google AdWords with other marketing strategies to truly maximize your business’ outputs.
9. Provide Free Demos and Samples
You should provide free demos and samples of your product to build awareness. This ultimately make your customers more likely to buy and invest in your business.
10. Give Out Coupon Deals
Whether you sell a product or offer a service, you can give out coupon deals to quickly promote your business.
Coupon deal sites allow you to amass a huge following on a targeted location. Furthermore, it increases brand awareness and provides an influx of new customers.
Overall, the goal of coupons is not to drive sales but gain popularity in order to urge people to visit your website and try out your product.
Tip: Make sure to answer every query and provide excellent customer service to coupon-driven customers as they are harder to please than your normal customers.
11. Use Email Marketing
Email marketing remains one of the top converting channels used by other companies to gain new leads.
As a small business owner, it’s important to know that most people who visit your website are not ready to buy from you instantly. You still need to reach and interact with them through email. Ideally, you should highlight new products and special offers to urge your recipients to click through your website.
Furthermore, you can instantly communicate with them at a very little cost thus allowing you to reach a large number of potential customers.
12. Host a Web Seminar
Consider hosting a web seminar to increase lead magnets for your email marketing campaign. You can choose a webinar in the form of a presentation, discussion, or demonstration. Not only can the right topic drive a large batch of subscribers to your list but also build credibility among your current subscribers.
A webinar can also be more engaging than simple videos as the impact of a Q&A format makes people feel like they are receiving more valuable information. Furthermore, it can be recorded as standalone products or a series of products. Overall, it’s a great medium for businesses that want to use both live and recorded videos.
13. Consider Print Media
Half of the world might have moved online but print media still thrives today. In fact, retail consumers trust print advertisements 34% more than they trust search engine ads when making a purchasing decision.
And as print media’s popularity continue to decrease, its price lowers as well. It’s now cheaper to put an advertisement in print. In addition, it lets your business stand out from its competitors and attract a considerable amount of audience.
Tip: Combine print media with other online marketing strategies to effectively forward your brand message.
14. Give a Free Consultation
You can give people access to your expertise by giving a free consultation. Through this, you can increase your credibility and position yourself as an authority in your specific niche. This ultimately generate new leads for your business.
However, you might think that a free consultation means disclosing too much information. But the opposite is actually true. Other people might grab and go but they were never going to be your loyal customers anyway. Through a consultation, you can eventually find the right type of people who will be impressed by the value you can provide and are interested to invest in quality service.
It’s important to note, though, that this advertising strategy is not ideal for every type of businesses. It works well for companies that offer professional services.
15. Offer Incentives to Employees
You should offer incentives to employees as they are more likely to refer your product or service to other people they know. Treat your employees to vouchers and give out freebies relevant to your campaign so they can easily spread the word about how great your business is.
After all, referrals are still one of the most effective advertising strategies to find potential consumers.
16. Look for an Endorser
Find an endorser who can effectively promote your business. Ideally, you should hire a famous celebrity to give personality to your brand and create excitement around a certain product. If your consumers see someone they like and relate to, they are more likely to try out your business.
Tip: As celebrities often come with a high price, you can opt to get your brand endorsed by a recognizable figure in your niche.
17. Join a Local Business Group
You can have the opportunity to meet other like-minded companies by joining various local business groups. Look for niche-specific groups around your area as they are more likely to share referrals, unique talents, and new opportunities.
Connections have a tendency to multiply fast so you should take networking seriously. Not only can you expand your reach across a specific location but also leverage seemingly minor connections into major ones.
18. Attend Networking Events
Online networking presents many advantages but face-to-face networking still holds great importance in today’s world of business marketing.
You should look out for relevant networking events in your area and make an effort to attend them. It’s a must to hand out as many business cards as possible in order to generate potential leads for your company.
Ultimately, attending networking events in-person allows you to establish a deeper connection with other businesses.
19. Partner with Other Businesses
Success in business can not be achieved without teamwork.
Combine your own resources and knowledge with other companies to bring out mutual marketing profits to all the parties involved. Typically, you should partner with a business that complements your products and services then work on advertising strategies that can ultimately benefit you both.
20. Use Video Marketing
The use of videos in a campaign continues to be one of the most effective advertising strategies today. With a staggering one billion active users on YouTube every month, you cannot ignore this demand for videos.
Video marketing provides many benefits to businesses, such as an increase in conversions and brand awareness. Furthermore, creating a short but inspiring video allows you to effectively tell a story about your brand and ultimately drives interest to your company.
However, Youtube is not the only platform you can use to share videos. According to Buffer, 81% of businesses prefer to use Facebook for their video marketing. In addition, more and more social media platforms are now seeing the rise of video contents.
Are you interested in using this specific advertising strategy for your business? Check out Mustasa Republic, a video production house in the Philippines. With our years of experience, we can help you produce engaging video content that can drive an increase in your sales. Contact us today to learn more!
ALSO READ: Your Essential Guide to Youtube Advertising
With these effective advertising strategies, you can attract numerous consumers and increase brand awareness. Furthermore, you can stay ahead of the competition and ultimately boost your sales.
Found this article helpful? Check our blog for more information about advertising strategies, specifically using video content.