There’s good news and bad news when it comes to marketing your small business.
The good news is that as a small business owner, you are the perfect person to promote your product or service! You’re knowledgeable and passionate, which are two of the main ingredients in an effective marketer. The bad news is that marketing can take up a lot of time. And extra time is not something that entrepreneurs come by very often.
We have put together 4 simple marketing “hacks” that will help boost your small business marketing efforts and make your life as an entrepreneur a little easier.
- Identify your strengths
There are a ton of options for marketing your business – newsletters, social media, attending events, etc., which can all attract and retain customers. Figure out what marketing efforts are paying off, whether it’s your Facebook page or the email sign up list you have on your website/in your store , and focus your energy on that!
- Then identify your weaknesses
Is your Twitter page struggling for followers? Are you attending networking events and trade shows and not meeting potential customers? Just as important at identifying your marketing strengths is being honest with yourself about what isn’t working. Don’t be afraid to ditch the efforts that aren’t resulting in more sales. This will free up your time and allow you to hone in on what is attracting customers. And you can always revisit these marketing options later when you have more time and/or resources!
- Create an editorial calendar
Keeping a blog or social media profile up to date can be overwhelming. Customers expect regularly timed, engaging content, and it can often be hard to keep up! By coming up with an editorial calendar, you can plan months ahead and take the guesswork out of creating content.
We suggest creating a template that identifies your opportunities for each month – January means New Year’s Resolutions, May means Small Business Week and October might represent the launch of a new product line. Once you’ve identified these opportunities, you can start making a monthly calendar in Excel that lists out blog articles, newsletter topics and social media posts that relate to them. Voila – you have an editorial calendar!
- Use the 80/20 rule
While it may sound counterintuitive, you should only be self-promoting on social media about 20% of the time. “People use social media to be social, they don’t want to be subjected to your online sales pitch,” says Sofie de Buele on Social Media Today. Posting about things that are valuable and relevant to your customers 80% of the time will not only encourage conversation, it will lighten your marketing load because you’ll be curating content rather than having to constantly create it.
Still not ready to tackle your small business marketing youself? We can help! Just visit www.BusinessAdvising.org and sign up to get the marketing support you need to take your business to the next level.