Marketing is the lifeblood of running a small business. Brand identity is everything for small businesses, from word-of-mouth campaigns to carefully crafted online deals. Here, we discuss some quick and easy ways to market your small business, so you can spend less time stressing over advertising campaigns and more time growing your business. 

Of course, if you’re looking for expert marketing services, we offer special deals for small business owners to help grow their online presence and social media marketing strategies. If you’re interested in finding out more, contact us today. All that aside, let’s look at some of the top ways to market your small business.

1. Social Media

Advertising across social media is crucial for any small business. Here are a few ideas to help you get started.

• Try Facebook and Facebook Groups: Depending on your target audience, Facebook is still a strong contender for the most used social media platform, meaning advertising on Facebook and building Facebook Groups for your dedicated customers can be a great way to build brand identity. You can also promote things on your Facebook page and offer giveaways to drive engagement. 
• Instagram Promotions: Instagram is an excellent platform for growing your business. Show your process, demo new products, or promote user-generated content (UGC). Engaging with followers on Instagram is a great way to build brand identity and customer loyalty, as is encouraging customers to share their products with a specific hashtag and tag your company. 
• Dive into TikTok: TikTok’s unique algorithm allows you to advertise to particular niches and reach audiences in a way never before seen. Craft videos that show off your business, share UGC, and promote your products and services. Be sure to provide informative content which helps build your brand identity and trust. Short, informational, trendy videos can attract new viewers to your channel. 
• Build a Pinterest Following: Pinterest may be slightly different from the other social media options here, but curating a Pinterest following is a great way to get customers excited about your products. Encourage customers to create their own pins, share their experiences with your services, and take advantage of the video-sharing feature on Pinterest to draw in new potential customers. Who knows, you may even go viral! The nice thing about Pinterest is you can cross-share different posts from other social media accounts, allowing you to run two marketing strategies with one plan. 
• Promote Your Personal LinkedIn: If you’re a small business owner, you are likely part of your brand identity. Promoting yourself and your services on LinkedIn can build professional trust in your business and create partnership opportunities you may not find any other way. LinkedIn works primarily on the strength of your personality and brand recognition. Be sure to post regularly and craft a consistent image of yourself and your company for the best results.  

2. Influencer Marketing 

Similar to social media marketing, influencer marketing provides an organic connection with potential customers. Using influencers to promote your products to their following can be a great way to build brand awareness, and partnering with product testers for honest reviews can help drive brand loyalty and trust. Make sure to pick and choose your influencers well, and combine influencer marketing with other UGC posts to help widen your reach and merge paid posts with naturally generated content. 

3. Search Engine Marketing

To take your search engine optimization (SEO) to the next level, optimize keywords in your blog posts and across your website, and make sure to outfit your website for Google search results. Gradually improving your site’s SEO is a great way to bring in customers and drive brand awareness naturally. While SEO may seem confusing, a little keyword research and polish goes a long way toward putting your business on the front page of Google. 

4. Email Marketing

Email marketing can come in several forms. A regular email newsletter is a great way to drive customer engagement and inform followers about deals, updates, and new products. Make sure to craft other email marketing prompts like abandoned cart reminders and post-purchase review prompts to help engage your customer base. 

One way to get more customers to interact with your company is to offer a product or discount for signing up for email messages. Also, provide customizable email lists so your customers only see the communications they want from your company, as this can cut back on unsubscribers. 

5. Advertising

Traditional advertising still has its place for small businesses. However, combining advertising campaigns on Google or social media platforms with concurrent social media campaigns and email marketing strategies can help boost your business to new heights. In addition, advertising works well as part of a multi-pronged advertising campaign, so coordinate your advertising across several platforms, or focus on the platform with the largest following and follower-to-customer conversions. 

6. Word-of-Mouth

Word-of-mouth is a powerful tool for any business but especially for small businesses. Offering excellent services and encouraging customers to leave reviews are great ways to showcase customer satisfaction and build a brand reputation. Word-of-mouth also applies to user-generated content, meaning that encouraging customers to share their experience with a hashtag is a great way to spread the word about your business. 

7. Guest Promotions

Whether you appear as a guest on a podcast or host an expert guest blogger, or even write for another website, cross-promoting your business builds trust and helps you reach a wider audience. Podcasts, videos, blogs, TikToks, and more can count as guest promotions so long as you coordinate with other creators to reach their followers and boost your business.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by all the marketing options? Here at Planted Marketing, we offer expertise in the above areas and more. We put our experience to work for small and mid-sized business owners of all types to help grow their businesses and build their brand identity. To find out more, contact us today. 

Planted Marketing is a full-service digital marketing agency that specializes in content marketing and organic solutions for woman-owned brands. Our wide variety of services allows for customized plans that work best for your brand and each stage of growth. Want to learn more? Send us a message at info@planedmarketing.com. Talk soon!