Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

Originally written for Sutton Place Magazine and published in January 2021

Now, more than ever, small businesses are looking for ways to increase their revenue without breaking the bank. In fact, there are quite a few things business owners can do that are low/no cost which can have a profound effect on their bottom line. 

Have a Trusted Online Presence

All roads lead back to Google which means you need to have an online presence – starting with a website. Even if your site is just an informational landing page: name, address, what you do, value proposition, and contact information. A website is the foremost way potential customers will know you exist. Sites like Wix and Squarespace make developing a website incredibly easy. 

Secondly, you want to “own” your company name and this means having multiple assets associated with it. A website is one asset. Social media and review sites are additional assets. When you search your company name online you want to have as many positive assets associated with it as possible. A must-have is a Google My Business page. This ties into your business name, contact information, images, and showcases Google reviews – very important to ensure people not just find you, but see you as trusted and reputable. 

Use Reviews to Your Advantage

Between Google, Yelp, Facebook, Trip Advisor, there are quite a few places where customers can post reviews about their experience with you. Use these to showcase your value proposition (what makes you the best at what you do and why you’re the clear choice for customers). Always respond to reviews – the good and bad. Use positive comments on your website, in social media posts, and in email marketing. Let the positive reviews do the talking for you. 

Be the One People Find on Google

The technical marketing term is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). At the heart, it’s about being the company that pops up when a potential customer is searching online for something they need. Example: if a customer types in “Dry Cleaner Sutton Place” and you’re a dry cleaner, you want to be in one of the top spots on the first page. You want to be on page one not just for the name of your own business, but for the terms people use in the search field – “dry cleaner,” “environmentally friendly dry cleaning,” “dry cleaner delivery” – and so on. There are a lot of technical aspects to SEO, but there are also a lot of great resources, like Moz.com, to help you do this on your own. 

Keep Your Friends Close

It costs six times more to acquire a new customer than it does to get an existing one to make another purchase. Develop programs that make it easy for you to upsell, cross-sell, and drive repeat business. Some tried and true methods include email marketing and frequent shopper/loyalty programs. Email marketing is built into sites like Wix and Squarespace. Other platforms like Mail Chimp offer free/low-cost options. Each makes it seamless to capture email addresses which you can use to send out targeted campaigns with promotions and helpful tips. And you can use existing customers to help you get new ones through referral programs – the more customers someone brings in the more discounts they earn. 

At the end of the day, marketing is a mix of science and creativity. It’s about putting the time in to build a good foundation for your marketing efforts through a solid value proposition, SEO, and content development and also testing new programming. Without investing a lot of money, you can test different campaigns. When something works – scale it. If it doesn’t work, analyze your data, adjust, and try something new.