Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

Many small and medium size businesses are returning to normal levels after the lockdowns and restrictions and many are facing a very different world than before 2020.

Some businesses will have lost customers while other may have parted ways with staff. While staff recruitment is beyond the scope of this article we’re going to look at ways small and medium sized businesses can win back customers and allow their revenues to grow.

For many businesses the last 10 years has seen a growth in investment of online advertising. This has become even more important in a post lockdown world. Many people are still working from home and visiting shops and offices less so the only way you’ll get to many is through their computers and smart devices. Depending on your type of business you might want to invest your time on Facebook or Instagram. For more B2B orientated businesses, LinkedIn is the way forward.

Most businesses could benefit from visibility on Google whether through the organic results or via the paid ads section. Google tends to work well for companies who have people actively searching for what they offer whereas Facebook and Instagram tend to work better for social businesses as well as new and trendy offerings.

Print advertising still works well even in a digital world. Certain businesses do really well with flyers and coupons while many others run adverts in local and national newspapers and magazines. The big difference with print media is that it can get expensive quickly and you often can’t work out your results for quite some time, unlike digital advertising where you can almost judge your results on the fly. If you’re on a tighter budget then trying to get local media coverage can work very well as can advertorials, which are paid for, but are presented like they are news stories. All of these printed forms of advertisement can work well and which one you choose will depend on your specific business and also your budget.

Referrals are often the best way to gain new customers and while this can happen by chance most companies can really benefit from having a referral strategy in place. This could be in the form of asking satisfied customers to refer their friends and family or it could be much more formal such as joining a business networking group such as Business Networking International (BNI) who meet weekly to distribute solid leads amongst the group members. Both of these strategies can provide very good leads for a business without ta huge outlay in and spend. If you work in a serviced office or co-working space you could set up your own informal networking event each week over a coffee in the common area.

When you know who you need to speak to, and if you want to get into contact with key decision makers, then cold calling or outreach can be a strategy for many businesses. If you don’t have the time (or desire) to be cold calling people then there are companies that offer this as a service but many are unwilling or unable to guarantee results so there is an element of trial and error along with considerable risk involved with this strategy. However, if you’re on a shoestring budget and you enjoy talking to people a couple of hours “dialling for dollars” each day can pay off in the long run.

In this short article we’ve looked at a handful of marketing strategies that can implemented by most businesses in order to help recruit customers. Some of the examples require more time while some require a significant budget but each one can be utilised in a post lockdown world to help grow your business back to strength.