There are some entrepreneurs who naturally excel at marketing. Business for them means the process of selling, and they love it. But many other small business owners struggle with marketing.
If you started a business because you are passionate about a product or service you can offer, marketing might be a struggle. After all, your dream was not to advertise and sell things. This is common even for people with the most visionary ideas.
The good news is that in 2022, it is actually relatively easy to market your business. You don’t need to hire a marketing firm or pay thousands of dollars for TV spots. Digital marketing is accessible to everyone, and once you understand branding, you’re halfway there.
To help you get started, here are 5 easy marketing tips for your small business.
1. Identify Your Brand
Branding is crucial when it comes to modern marketing and it is not too complicated. When it comes down to it, your company’s brand is something you inherently know. It is what you get excited about when describing your business to your peers. It is the essence of your business and what ignites your passion.
However, identifying your brand requires you to define this passion. It should contain some of the chaotic energy, but you need to find a way to express it, and that will require you to pare it down.
Identifying your brand will help you better understand your unique selling proposition (USP). It is a process you need to go through if you want to actually succeed in the market.
2. Build a Website
Once you have identified your brand, you need to build a website based around its core themes. You can use a website builder like Wix to create a beautiful and effective website in no time. With a deep understanding of your branding, you will be able to choose the right website themes for your business and decide on what your website needs in order to connect with customers.
Your website is a potential client’s first real impression of your business. It needs to get your business’s USP across. It also needs to be maintained. If you set it up and leave it as is, the copy will become outdated and it may start to seem as if your business is defunct.
If you are setting up an ecommerce business, your primary concern is going to be on the functionality of your site as an online store. You can do the basics with your website builder. Then, you will need to input photos of your products, write product descriptions, and choose payment portals.
3. Set Up Social Media Accounts
Many entrepreneurs are reluctant to dabble in social media, as they are not sure they will be able to build a following. However, social media has become the easiest part of marketing your business.
The first step is setting up your social media accounts. Facebook and Instagram are a great start. They will guide you through all the steps. Once you have set up the basics, you can start posting content and looking for followers.
This will set you in good stead to start using social media marketing.
4. Sponsored Posts
When you have a business account with Facebook and Instagram, you can sponsor any of your posts. This entails paying for them to display it on the pages of people within your target audience. You can let their algorithms set your target audience, or you can manually choose your filters.
Social media marketing gives you easy access to billions of people worldwide. Because social media platforms have so much data on users, they can target people according to region, demographics, education, income, interests, and more. You can get very specific with who you want to see your adverts.
Sponsoring posts is a cheap and easy way to get your business out into the world.
5. Engage
The sponsored posts will be doing the heavy lifting when it comes to marketing. However, if you want to build a following around your business, you need to engage with followers online. This means, first and foremost, responding to questions and complaints in a timely, friendly manner.
But your engagement should not end there. Rather, you should start sharing posts about your business and related subjects, asking your followers for their thoughts. Generate conversation on your page and you will have the benefit of followers who are actually engaging with your brand. Keep in mind that a strong online presence today is not possible if your audience is not connecting with you and vice versa.
Creating a successful marketing strategy in 2022 is hard work. But while it may not seem like what you signed up for as an entrepreneur, it is an unavoidable necessity for a thriving business nowadays. Fortunately, today online marketing is more accessible than ever, and anyone willing to put in an effort can succeed.
