Marketing Startup

Top 10 Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

After sheer research, we are presenting you with the Top 10 Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses. 

This post is dedicated to small businesses who are seeking ways to excel in their business growth.

This list of small businesses marketing ideas is another effort from the Enterslice Research Team to help budding companies grow exponentially.

Running a successful business requires a blend of business acumen and sufficient capital resources.

It becomes more acumen depended on the case of the micro and small enterprise as they lack availability of huge funds.

Among all the business processes, Marketing has a special mention to influence business growth.

Interestingly, it takes extraordinary acumen to make optimum utilization of the marketing fund with limited resources.

Therefore, one needs to go through this blog to learn innovative marketing tactics that triumph even under a constraint budget.

What are the Ideal Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses?

What should be the Best Marketing Techniques for Small Businesses?

The marketing techniques should be a budget-friendly affair for a small scale business. At the same time, it should ensure the optimum utilization of the resources.

Apart from these, an ideal marketing technique for small businesses should fulfill the following conditions;

1. Favorable Expense to Output Ratio:

Small businesses with limited funds should not wait for a longer marketing cycle to generate revenue.

Therefore, it is imperative to ensure that the marketing strategy serves a favorable expense to output ratio.

2. Beat the Competitors & Satisfy Business Goals

A model marketing strategy should be able to compete with the marketing campaigns of competitors.

At the same time, it should be in synchronization with the business goals.

3. Innovative in Nature

It is rightly said that “Innovation beats resources.”

The marketing strategy for Small businesses should be innovative enough to endure the hefty funded campaigns of competitors.

As now we are aware of the ideal marketing campaign, we must proceed to the list of marketing ideas for small scale entrepreneurs.

Top 10 Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

1. Invest in Website Development

“The Internet Makes us All Equal.”

Business Entities irrespective of their size have equal access to the internet. The confluence of internet and marketing activities has changed the course of marketing operations.

Having a dynamic website is one of the best ways to harness the power of the internet.

An ideal website should be interactive and user-friendly. It should contain information that is helpful to potential customers.

It should have call-to-action buttons that can prompt a customer to contact you from the website.

To have a Call button, Chatbot and Messaging option adds to this cause.

Pros

• Wider reach
• One-stop information center
• Ideal for modern-day customers

Cons

• Needs regular management
• Needs a dedicated team

2. Advertisement on Other Search Engines

“There Exists an Internet Beyond Google.”

Ignorance is the cause of many problems that do not exist in the first place. If you are a small business owner and worried about how to manage Google ads budget, slow down.

There are many channels to advertise on the internet, even beyond Google ad services.

However, the majority of people do not explore beyond Google ad words. Hence, the costs of advertising via Google ads increase.

As a small business marketer, one should try to utilize the advertising space on other search engines. These search engines include Bing, Yahoo, Duck Duck Go, etc.

Small scale industry can get similar output in lesser costs.

Pros

• Wide coverage
• Lesser cost

Cons

• Need a more prolonged engagement to get results in comparison to Google ad words.

3. Develop a Customer Referral Program

“Word of mouth is the best form of advertising.”

 

Customer referral programs are running successfully since ages for small businesses.

In this scheme, the existing customer refers to the product or service of a small business to a potential customer.

The potential customer is offered a discounted price against the referral they provide. On the other hand, the existing customer gets benefits if the potential customer makes a purchase.

The existing customer gets benefits in the form of commission or discounted price in their next purchase.

Additionally, these programs are beneficial in building a community network for small business entrepreneurs.

These schemes take advantage of a perfect mix of personal trust of existing customers combining with luring offer prices.

Pros

• Provides word of mouth publicity
• Low-cost initiative to run

Cons

• Takes a long time to get effective results

4. Free Demo/ Discounted Sample Distribution

“The ticket to the circus must have a photo of joker or ringmaster as it entices the people to buy it.”

Similarly, a small business should make every effort to ensure customers interaction with the essence of your product or service.

Providing a free demo of your service or product can surely be an excellent strategy for the fulfillment of the above goal.

The most significant advice here is to ensure that this event takes place in the company of a niche audience.

A small business manager should conduct an in-depth survey to reach the most potential group of customers for the same.

This will decide the efficiency and effectiveness of the given idea.

Pros

• Get direct interaction with customers
• Word of mouth publicity

Cons

• Involves costing of demo

5. Facebook Ads 

“Content is fire. Social media is gasoline.”

Investing in Facebook ads is a piece of standard advice for small scale business entities.However, there is a gigantic difference between a normal Facebook ad and a strategically placed Facebook ad.

The gist of a Facebook ad lies in the campaign planning of such an ad.The ad should be posted after having a clear idea about the kind of people the entity wants to reach and at what costs.

Facebook provides an option to select the attributes of the targeted audience for business growth.There is an option to select the age, location, interests, etc. of the audience.

There is another option to select the display time of the given ad. One can choose at what hours of the days they want to display the ad to their targeted audience.

Utilizing these options can help to plan a successful ad campaign on Facebook.

Pros

• Budget-friendly
• High customization options

Cons

• No. of leads is influenced by the length of the ad campaign

6. Run a Coupon Referral System

“Strong customer relationships drive sales, sustainability, and growth.”

One of the innovative ways for a small business to run a successful marketing campaign is to start a coupon referral system.

A coupon referral is a network marketing system. This can work in multiple ways in favor of the small business.

One of the ways is to make a pool of similar small businesses but of different industries ( yes, in order to avoid growing a competitor).

This bunch of businesses will provide discounted coupons for each other’s products or services.

If that is too much socializing for you, then we have another method for you as well.

In this method, you hire another mediator to offer discount coupons directly to your customers.

These mediators are mostly Web Aggregatorss which operate as coupon providers. They charge against every sale in the form of commission.

In both the options, you provide coupons for cashback discounts or coupons so that your buyers get coupon value to en-cash against shopping, holiday packages, and mobile & DTH recharges, etc.

Pros

• Long term benefits in sales and marketing
• Trending at present times

Cons

• Needs dynamic offers and pricing to lure customers

7. Run on Old School methods in Your Niche

“Nobody counts the number of ads you run; they just remember the impression you make.”

Investing in old school methods of marketing such as print advertisements can still work like a charm.This is One of the most consistent Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses.

However, these methods should be executed with modern strategies to make them work for you. These prints should exclusively target niche customers.

For example, running a small industry for cricket gears should avoid advertising in daily newspapers or general sports magazines. Instead, it should try to take cover in cricket magazines for the best results.

Pros

• Bridge to niche customers
• Community branding

Cons

• Can have limited attempts considering a low marketing budget

8. Organise a Free Help Event

“Amazing things will happen when you listen to the consumer.”

As a small business, you may be visiting events or exhibitions to mark your presence in the industry.

This is effective, and it will fetch positive visibility for you in the market and niche customers.

However, as a small scale business, you may get less attention in comparison to other competitors with established goodwill in the market and among visitors.

To overcome this problem, one needs to conduct free help events all by themselves.

The aim of this event is to address the queries or burning problems of niche customers.Additionally, to render service for free or at a discounted rate is also a useful practice.

Providing them free consultancy from industry experts is something that lures them to the event.

The reason for the success of this event is that it is a win-win situation for both customers and organizers.

The customers get to meet the industry experts or get some paid service for a free or discounted rate. The business gets a chance to meet potential customers.

Pros

• Direct customer reach
• Option for cross-selling

Cons

• Need a dedicated budget and workforce
• Needs publicity to reach to customers

9. Content Creation and Marketing

“Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.”

Ever since the internet penetrated our daily lives, the marketing opportunities through it grew exponentially.

Every brand, whether it is a budding start-up or a multinational corporation, is harnessing the power of the internet to boost customer’s reach.

Internet Search engines are a gateway between service providers and customers. Customers tend to search for their desired products or services on the internet before purchase.

Having relative and useful content is the secret to feature among top results on these search engines.

Having a blog addressing relative issues is the most popular and effective way to create an impact on the search database.

However, the blog is not the only way of reaching customers. Content can be in many varieties.Content can be in the form of images, infographics, content, video, etc.

Choosing this route provides you an edge over competitors who are not utilizing the power of the internet to grow their business.

At the same time, one gets an opportunity to compete with established incorporations on neutral turf.

Pros

• Equal opportunity for everyone
• Can be started with a tiny investment

Cons

• Needs routine effort

10. Running a YouTube Channel

“You cannot buy engagement. You have to build engagement”

Last but not least, running a YouTube channel is another effective way to market your product or services. YouTube is the world’s most popular video-sharing platform.

There are 1.3 billion active users of YouTube in 2019. In this case,a large number of  people use this platform to gather information about their needs and interests.

Certainly, running a YouTube channel dedicated to your niche customer base can be very productive for business marketing.

Small businesses can address the query of their customers through a YouTube channel. At the same time, it can be used to review existing products and launch new products.

Pros

• Maximum customer reach
• Low cost solution

Cons

• Need uploads at regular intervals.

Conclusion

Marketing is a continuous process for any business, whether it is a small scale or large scale business.

At the same time, it requires continuous availability of funds for the best results.Hence, proper financial management is the backbone of all marketing operations.

Application of the above-mentioned Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses is a way to ensure innovative business growth that too in budget.

The other significant thing one needs to make sure is a sound business plan and budget allotment. Consequently, the right business plan ensures the optimum availability of the budget to carry out marketing activities.

Therefore before proceeding to market, a small business should consult expert Business Plan Consultants.