August 15, 2023 | Last Updated on: August 18, 2023
Small business owners are always looking to keep up with the major businesses in their respective industries. It can be a major challenge to not lose ground to companies putting thousands of dollars into Search Engine Optimization (SEO), social media, and email marketing. However, the solution for small businesses cannot be shrugging and saying that it’s an impossible task. Your small business fills a need that customers have, and there are plenty of people out there who want to hear your story. It’s just a matter of getting it out there.
The truth is, it doesn’t have to be that the company that spends the most money and has the most resources automatically gets the most customers. If you use the resources at your disposal wisely and efficiently, you can definitely keep up with the top competition.
In this article, we will outline five ways that will help you spread the word about your small business. The more you get the word out there, the more customers you will get, the more your company will succeed. And who doesn’t want all of that?
Consider this: how are you going to get new customers if no one knows who you are or what you’re about. Take, for example, a new restaurant. When it first opens, people might walk or drive past it and say “hey look, a new restaurant!” But when it comes down to whether or not they come in, they’re going to look at the outside and make a decision based on the appearance.
That’s just one part of your brand. How you market yourself in an ever-growing media-driven world is essential. Consider hiring brand ambassadors to spread the word and create a word of mouth campaign. Consider passing out business cards to your potential customer base and saying hey, come check us out, this is what we’re all about. You can even create a press release when something important happens to raise awareness about your brand and your products.
To establish a brand, you must first understand your own brand. It sounds obvious, but if you don’t know what you stand for, how you want to approach your customers, and what the message is you want to convey to your customers, you won’t be able to properly and consistently convey said message.
Create brand guidelines for this exact purpose, and never worry about how your customers perceive you again.
You’re a small business competing in a field that boasts large business competitors. You’re the little guy trying to fight for space against the big guys. Own it! Embrace it! The faster you recognize that you’re able to put marketing efforts into areas the big guys wouldn’t even think of, the faster you’re going to be able to spread the word about your business.
One of the best ways to get the word out about your small business is to become a fixture in the area in which your company resides. If your company is based in a town called Biz2Creditsville and you’re a printing company, you want to be known as the printing company of Biz2Creditsville. You want people to know the faces of you and your employees, and you want people to know your services like the backs of their hands.
The most successful small businesses take advantage of the opportunities in front of them. The opportunity in front of you is clear. Your demographic is local and right in front of you. Your target audience walks by your business every day. You have the opportunity to think small and approach customers with a one-on-one experience that other businesses can’t.
Spread the word and share out your contact information. Be at every local event in your local community passing out business cards and coupons. Take out an ad in the local newspaper. There’s no such thing as being too local.
Ah, social media. It may seem daunting to many small business owners, as it’s a relatively new craze that’s taken the world by storm. Years ago, we were just getting used to sending out emails to our email lists, now we’re doing something called carousels on Instagram and dancing in TikToks. We get it, it isn’t something you were prepared for. But like it or not, social media is not only here to stay, but it’s here to make a tremendous difference in the market.
Entrepreneurs are learning either through active efforts or the hard way that social media is extremely important. For many companies, their marketing strategies center around social media to begin with. Social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter have been flooded by companies looking to get new customers every day. Those companies are succeeding for the most part, as they’re reaching their customers in places they spend their free time.
Like it or not, so many customers spend their free time on Twitter, scrolling through Instagram, watching TikTok dances. While your hope may be that they find you through a quick Google search instead, having the flexibility for your customers to find you in different places will make a world of difference when it comes down to searchability.
To be clear, we’re not expecting you to learn new TikTok dances and take up a side hustle of posting pretty pictures with silly captions on Instagram. (Unless you want to!) What we are suggesting, however, is that you consider utilizing every marketing opportunity at your disposal to spread the word out about your small business. That means posting on Instagram. That means Tweeting. And yes, for many small businesses, that means coming up with a TikTok strategy that fits your small business.
When looking into how to approach posting on the different social media channels, consider that no two companies work the same. There will likely be a lot of trial and error, but once you can start to build up a following, you will see that your audience is far more engaged and looking to support your businesses.
You may have noticed we didn’t include LinkedIn with the last section of social media websites. While LinkedIn could be considered a social media website, we consider it more of a place for businesspeople to connect with each other and learn about each other’s work and business. You won’t see too many influencers on LinkedIn, whereas you will see a lot of them on other social media channels.
When working on your marketing campaign, consider the importance of LinkedIn. Having a strong business page will attract new business and show off the top features of your business. You can provide regular updates about what your small business is up to, provide important information like your address and phone number, and show prospective customers what your small business is all about.
One way of looking at LinkedIn is considering it a virtual word of mouth. If a customer finds you on LinkedIn, they might refer it to their friend, who might refer it to their friend, creating a chain of referrals to your business. LinkedIn is a great way to market your business without having to do any silly dances or focus too heavily on pictures and other work that might not be as familiar to you.
Your LinkedIn page can be managed daily for a few minutes a day of upkeep and posting, then work on responding to comments and making sure your customers feel nurtured. It shouldn’t take too much work to make a big difference.
Trade shows are excellent opportunities for small businesses looking to connect with other businesses and customers looking for new products and more. Even with the rise of social media and the trend towards things going digital, the success and need for trade shows has not decreased. Retailers love going to trade shows to show off their new products and attract attention to them. They can often be found giving freebies to prospective customers and getting information from said customers like where to send emails and direct mail to.
Trade shows are one of the best marketing tools out there, as you get to connect face-to-face with your prospective clients and really pitch what you’re all about. It’s your best opportunity to put a voice to your company and show off what you’re most proud of. Consider it like brand awareness, just with the opportunity to make direct sales and speaking directly to your clients.
At trade shows you can also make connections with other businesses, perhaps helping you to promote each other’s brands. It’s always good to have as much horsepower as possible when it comes to spreading the word about your small business.
Often at trade shows you will create strong connections with said clients, which can one day lead to important testimonials. Testimonials are great for showing off to potential clients that people truly love your small businesses and that there’s demand for your products. All of these different marketing plays work together to get the word out about your small business.
Now you have plenty of options when it comes to spreading the word about your small business. While it may feel like a lot to consider, especially on a potentially small budget, most of these options can be done relatively easily and on your own. It’s all about creating consistent approaches to your efforts and making sure that you don’t leave any stones unturned. The key takeaway shouldn’t be that it takes a ton of work to get the word out about your small business, though. It’s that there are so many customers out there that you haven’t reached yet but can still reach. There are so many great opportunities and approaches you can take that will reel in those customers.
We’ve provided you with five different approaches for spreading the word about your small business. If even two of those five approaches work, you’ll get plenty of new customers from those alone. But we expect if they’re done correctly, all five will help you bring in new customers.
You’ll be thankful when the customers come rolling in because they’ve now heard of you.
