5 Things Every Small Business Should Know About Marketing

When you're a small business owner, marketing your business can be overwhelming. With all of the different ways you could market your business, where do you start? What's going to be the most cost-effective? Marketing is not something that can be mastered overnight, and every business is different. However, there are some marketing basics that every small business should know to help them get started on the right track and avoid common pitfalls.

Before we dive in, let's first clarify what we mean by "marketing."

Marketing is more than just promoting your company or selling a product. It's how you connect with your customers, build relationships and create an experience — one which hopefully inspires them to buy from you again and again. To me, marketing is the entire process of getting your product or service in front of an actual customer. If you're selling online, "marketing" includes things like:

• PPC and display ads

• SEO and content marketing

• Email outreach

• Branding

• Social media engagement

• Affiliate marketing

• PR activities like guest blogging and press releases

• If you're running a brick-and-mortar store, your marketing might include things like:

• flyers and mailers, local print ads, signage**

So to get you started on the right path, here are five things every small business should know about marketing: It's no secret that marketing your small business has become increasingly difficult in the past couple of years. The reason for this is that marketing channels have been saturated with content and business owners who wants to be where their competitors are. This content overload makes it very difficult for businesses to compete and stand out, but it doesn't mean you can't market your small business well.

1. Marketing is a lot more than advertising

Many small business owners think marketing is simply advertising — placing ads on Facebook or Instagram, spending money on Google Ads to be seen at the top of the page. This is part of marketing, but it's not everything. Marketing includes creating awareness for your brand and building brand loyalty among your customers. But first, you have to start to build your brand, your logo, colours, tone of voice, your visuals, your brand positioning, the characteristics of your brand.

2. You can't please everyone

Another reason many small businesses struggle with marketing is that they try to satisfy everyone with their product or service offerings. But you can't be all things to all people and still succeed in business because you won't have enough resources to spend on each customer segment that you target — not enough time and money to get your message out to them effectively and consistently, not enough personnel to take care of them properly once they're customers and not enough staff to manage it all effectively.

3. Define Your Ideal Customer

The first step to creating a successful marketing campaign is to identify your ideal customer. Don't just assume you know who it is because this can lead to wasted time and money if you're wrong. Once you have a clear idea of who your ideal customer is, all other decisions about your marketing become much easier. Here are some questions to ask:

• What does the customer need or want?

• How does the customer make their buying decisions?

• What are their demographics (age, sex, income, location, profession)?

• Would they be interested in your product or service?

• Determine where your customers are

Now that you have an idea of who your ideal customer is, it's time to think about where they go online. Do they read particular blogs? Which social media platforms do they use most? Which industry organisations do they belong to? This will help you determine the best places to reach them with your marketing efforts.

4. Learn How Much You Can Spend on Marketing

You'll likely have some sort of budget for marketing purposes, but if you don't have a strong grasp on what that budget should be, it can be challenging to know how much money to spend on paid advertising versus free promotion.

For many small businesses, marketing budgets are quickly taking on a more prominent role in the operations as opposed to an overall "cost of doing business" expense. The problem is, from my experience with clients and leaders in the field, overly-aggressive marketing tactics are too common in the small-business community.

The amount you spend on marketing each month will depend on:

• Your industry

• The nature of your business

• How many people do you want to reach

• And how often you want to reach them

A good general rule of thumb is to spend at least 5% of your gross revenue on marketing, but ideally between 7-10%. That may seem like a lot, but the more you invest in your marketing efforts, the better your chances of reaching new customers and keeping them coming back. It's recommended that you start small and test different campaigns and approaches. You can always increase your budget as you gain more information about what works best for your business—or if your business grows in size.

So now that you have a general idea of how much money to set aside for marketing,

5. Which types of channels are best for your business and your audience.

You've got your budget, you've run the numbers, but you're not sure where to put the money. After all, you know what works for one business doesn't always work for another. So how can you make sure your marketing dollars are going to be well-spent?

This is a good place to start:

• It's ok to ask questions. If someone tells you "you need this," you owe it to yourself and your business to find out why.

• Do your research. There's no shortage of content online helping business owners make decisions about marketing strategy. Head over to my other blog that tells you all about it.

• Ask around. Many businesses have similar marketing needs, so it's a good idea to reach out to others in your industry to see what's working for them and why.

• Hire an expert. Of course, I'm biased, but if you hire a professional who is used to working with businesses like yours, they should be able to tell you what sort of channels are best suited for your audience and goals--and they can help get them; set up! Contact me for a free 30 minutes consultation with no obligations.

However, with the right strategy and some old-fashioned hard work (which is by no means a bad thing), you can make a name for your business in the marketplace. While marketing doesn't have to be complicated, you will have to invest time, money, and effort into each tactic that you undertake.