6 Proven Marketing Tricks for Small Businesses

Calling all entrepreneurs! The chance to attract new customers is at your fingertips. Depending on your industry, you could reach thousands of potential customers with the click of a button. But if you don't get their attention, they'll move on to other companies. Many small businesses struggle to develop new customers, which can challenge their ability to grow from year to year.

There are several low-cost solutions to get new customers' attention. For example, you may have heard of Facebook Ads and Google AdWords. But those tools make up just part of a successful small business marketing strategy.

Consider these other avenues for using the internet to market your business:

• Your Website
  Your company's website is one of the most powerful tools you have to express its values and voice. You control all of the design, copy, and branding decisions potential customers see. Need a landing page for your ads? Once someone clicks through to your site, you control their experience. No need to worry about other companies' ads conflicting with yours; once users are on your site, all you need to do is seal the deal. Conduct a website audit to ensure you're making the most of this essential tool. You can start by asking these questions:

  • Is it mobile friendly?

  • Does it load quickly and correctly?

  • Are your products or services and answers to customers' questions easy to find?

  • Is it on-brand and up-to-date?

• Your Content
  You can get customers' interest and keep it by producing content such as blog posts, whitepapers, podcasts, or videos. Choose the outlet that works best for you and develop a schedule. To make the most of your marketing investment, develop content that you can reuse each year. Post your content to your business's social media channels or consider using an email newsletter service. As a community grows around your business, you'll see that those organic posts engage your customers. This strategy keeps your company's name top of mind.

• Earned Media
  Otherwise known as "word of mouth" in the internet age, earned media appears as other blogs, social media posts, and press referring to your business. Your business can earn media attention through a variety of activities, such as participating in community events, contributing to charity, introducing new products or services, and more.

• Search Engines
  When your potential customers want to know more about a product, service, or business, what will be their first step? They'll most likely plug a question or keyword into a search engine. There are ways to push your website to the top of the search results. Look into search engine optimization (SEO) for strategies you can implement right now with just a few tweaks to your website.

• Advertisements
  Use search ads and display ads to strategically target the people you expect to patronize your business. For example, you can target your ads to people who live in or around your community. There are many ways to target your ads for success.

• Influencers
  One way marketing has evolved in the past few years is to move from celebrity endorsements to influencer endorsements. The surprising thing about influencers is that there's a good chance you've never heard of many of them, but they can bring a lot of attention to your brand. Influencers are experts in a specific topic, like pets, travel, or food, who gain large social media followings from their blogs, images, or videos. If you identify some influencers with large followings interested in a product or service you can provide, you could have a great opportunity to grow your customer base.

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