Starting a small business is exciting, but it can also be overwhelming—especially when it comes to marketing. With limited time, budget, and resources, it’s easy to feel lost in a sea of strategies, tools, and jargon. But here’s some good news: you don’t need a massive budget or a PhD in marketing to get started.
What is small business marketing?
Before diving into the how of small business marketing, let’s first discuss what small business marketing is.
Much like it sounds, small business marketing is the way in which you promote your products or services in the marketplace. It’s a way to attract, engage, and retain customers. Ultimately, it’s ensuring the right people know who you are, what you offer, and why they should be interested in you. Regardless of if you are promoting a product, service, or your own expertise, your primary job is to reach the right people and give them a reason to trust you.
When I meet with small businesses, the approach I take looks a little different for each client. For instance, one may want to focus on digital marketing while another may want to have more direct outreach with events while another may want to try word of mouth. For me, I believe there is no one-size-fits-all playbook. The most important key to understanding small business marketing is to find what works for your small business.
A 2024 study by SimpleTexting found that 75% of small businesses have a marketing plan, and those with a structured plan are 6.7 times more likely to report success than those without one. This is why I stress time and again that a marketing plan is vital to your small business success.
In my 20+ years of marketing, I’ve seen countless businesses diving headfirst into the latest marketing trend and not receiving positive results. The problem is that they missed the first steps in developing a strong marketing plan. Rather than taking time to map out who their target audience really is, what is their unique value proposition, setting SMART marketing goals, along with setting up tracking and an online presence, they end up having a very shaky foundation.
Below are a few tips I’ve come up with from real-world experience to help you navigate the marketing waters as you venture into life with your small business. These are by no means marching orders, rather think of them as a starting point. When you put the basics in place, your marketing strategy will work harder for you.
Start with a Clear Understanding of Your Audience
When I meet with a client for the first time, I always ask who is your target audience. Who are the ones you feel need or can benefit from your product and/or service the most? And more times than not, I hear the same thing—everyone. As much as any business wants to believe they’re the next iPhone or PC or widget that no one wants to live without, the reality is as you are starting out you need to narrow your focus on a specific audience.
Questions you as a small business should be asking when thinking about who your target audience is should be very narrowly focused. Questions like Who’s the best-fit customer? What are they struggling with? Where do they spend time online?, should be top of your list.
Remember the more specific you can get, the easier the rest becomes. When you know what your audience is struggling with and where they spend their time online, your ads perform better, your content gets more engaging, and your leads are very qualified. Don’t feel overwhelmed when outlining who your target audience is, rather look at who your current customers are and go from there.
Ask yourself the following:
- Who do you love working with?
- Who seems to understand your company fast?
- What problems do they face?
- Where do they spend time online?
- What kind of content or messaging appeals to them?
By asking these questions, you’re beginning to build your buyer personas. The answers to these questions help you to paint a picture of your ideal customer. It helps you focus when you write and build out your marketing campaigns, you end up with a very tailored piece of content that will resonate with your target audience.
Don’t worry if you’ve never done this before. HubSpot offers a great free persona generator tool to help you organize your thoughts and build out your buyer personas.
Now that you have your buyer personas mapped out, let’s look at your unique value proposition.
Define Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
What’s a UVP you ask? It’s what sets you apart from your competitors. It’s the clear, compelling reason a customer should choose you. To put it simply, when someone lands on your homepage or social profile will they immediately know whom you help, what you help them do, and why they should care?
When writing a strong value prop, it’s not about sounding smart or clever—it’s about being clear. Don’t hide behind buzzwords, rather lead with outcomes. Use language you hear from your best customers, words and phrases they use to describe why they work with you.
For example, think about the following:
- Who is this for?
- What makes your product or service different or better?
- How do you solve your customer’s problem(s) in a way others don’t?
If you’re finding yourself stuck, trying to complete this sentence: “We help [target audience] achieve [value] without [pain point].”
For example, when filled out, it should read something like this: “We help small businesses find their voice in a crowded market without having huge marketing budgets.”
If you’re still not sure how to begin, try to answer with what would your happiest customer say about working with you?
Whether it’s your pricing, your process, your values, or your customer service, your unique difference should be easy to spot across your homepage, email campaigns, and social content.
Ok, now we have our buyer personas and our UVP, let’s setup some SMART marketing goals.
SMART Marketing Goals for Your Business
It’s easy to start thinking that you must get the word out about your business as fast as possible. But it’s critical that you are strategic when doing so, or else you’ll get lost in the all the noise. This is where SMART marketing goals become critical.
SMART marketing goals are:
- Specific: Make your goals specific and narrow for more effective planning. Think about what you want to accomplish, the impact this achievement will have, and what actions you will need to take.
- Measurable: Make sure your tasks and progress are measurable and moving you towards your goal. When measuring goals, consider any action plan you would implement to help progress towards your goal. For example, this can be as simple as tracking the time it takes you to meet a milestone.
- Achievable: Make sure you can reasonably accomplish your goal within a certain time frame. Think about if you have the resources and time needed to achieve the goal.
- Relevant: Your goal should align with your values and long-term objectives. This will directly contribute to successful results.
- Time-based: Set a realistic but ambitious end date to clarify task prioritization and increase motivation. You’ll want to determine if you have a short-term or long-term goal and from there build out a timeline and set a schedule to meet those deadlines to active your goal.
These goals are to be specific, measurable and attainable. By using SMART goals, you can create concise goals and action steps to keep you on track. If you’re stuck on setting up your SMART goals, Indeed offers this handy video to help you achieve this.
Now that you’re well on your way, let’s take a look at your brand identity and visuals. Are they telling the audience what you want them too?
The Importance of Brand Identity and Visuals
Ok you have your buyer personas, your UVP, and you’ve established your SMART goals, so you’re all set to the hit the market running right? Not so fast, you need to make sure you have established your brand identity and have visuals which reinforce that identity. To put it plainly, will your brand speak for you when you’re not in the room?
Now don’t think you have to have elaborate visuals and trendy TikToks to get started. All you need to get rolling is to be consistent. When your Instagram looks nothing like your website, and your emails feel like someone who doesn’t work for you wrote them, it causes confusion in the market place. And that ultimately will cost you trust with your target audience.
By establishing a simple color palette, using two clean fonts, and having a brand voice that matches how your sales team speaks, you will have a clear brand identity and establish a base layer of trust with your target audience.
I suggest to my clients they start with a one-page brand identity sheet and share it with anyone writing or designing for their business. I have them select 2 colors to use across their site and social channels, select 1 to 2 fonts to be consistently used across all channels, and to decide on the tone they want to take. Do they want to sound friendly, witty, reassuring?
Once you’ve done this, you can setup a professional website, create your Google Business Profile, and create your relevant social media profiles in which your target audience is active. I suggest on the social front to start with one or two platforms at first, like Instagram or LinkedIn, rather than trying to be everywhere.
By doing something as simple as this, you’re already a step ahead in establishing your voice in the crowded marketplace.
Ok you have all this down, now you’re ready to launch into a strategy marketing plan right? Not quiet yet. First you need to understand your customer’s journey.
Your Customer Journey and How to Navigate It
You’re ready to go, you want to dive into your strategic marketing plan and really see the clients line up. However, before you start spending money on Google ads or hosting an industry event, you’ll want to take a step back and really look into how a person goes from not knowing you exist to becoming a loyal customer.
You need to put on the customer hat at this point and really think about what your customer needs to see, hear, or feel at each stage of the buying process. Think about where they are at the awareness stage and what they need to know at the decision stage. Think strategically at what’s missing and what’s working to attract your target audience.
To begin this process, start by asking these questions to sketch out a simple version of your current customer journey:
- How did your current customers find you? (Google search, referrals, social, etc.)
- What convinces your current customers to trust you?
- What triggers your current customers to purchase your product or use your services?
- Once your customers have purchased from you, what do they do?
By addressing these questions, you can see where potential customers are falling through the cracks. This will give you ideas on how to fix issues and effectively plan your go-to-market strategy.
Now that you have all this down, it’s time to think about how you’re going to capture and retain all this information. This is where a lead capture system comes into play.
Basic Lead Capture on Your Site
You’ve got your first marketing win—traffic to your website. But how do you know who was there and what they came for? If they leave without a trace, you’re missing out on vital data which can help convert future prospects. This is why a simple lead capture is critical.
You don’t need anything too complicated or elaborate. You just need the following:
- A short form that asks for a name and email.
- A clear reason to provide this information—free consultation, newsletter signup, early access, etc.
- A simple way to do a follow-up—email thank you, automation, etc.
Clients of mine have had great success with simply offering a free consultation or guide. When deciding what to offer, we look at what their project or service is and what is most helpful to someone visiting their site.
The best place to put a lead capture form is where people are already engaging, either at the bottom of your blog posts or on your Contact Us page. These visitors are more likely to convert than someone landing on your homepage through a Google search.
If you are struggling with creating a lead capture form, HubSpot offers a free online form builder.
Now that you have a lead, what’s next? Setting up a CRM system.
CRM Management and Tracking
I can already hear you now, I don’t need a customer relationship management (CRM) tool as I have my Excel spreadsheet already in place. Look I get it, as I’ve done it before too. Spreadsheets are the easy button in tracking; however, they get messy quickly! Once people start signing up, emailing you, or showing interest on your social posts, it becomes way too easy to lose track of who’s who, what stage they’re in, or when you last followed-up when relying on a spreadsheet.
A CRM system can help you manage all this data in one place. It helps you organize, see your pipeline at a glance, and keep track of every customer and prospect interaction—all in one place. Even as a team of one, having a CRM in place makes scaling later easier.
There are a number of CRM systems available, all at various price points. If you are looking into a CRM system, this article by Forbes outlines the 10 best options for small businesses.
By utilizing a CRM system, you’ll be able to track trends and see what marketing channels are truly working for you. In addition, I recommend utilizing Google Analytics to check website tracking and see what pages are hitting and where globally your audience is coming from.
Keep in mind that when looking at your data and seeing what’s working and what’s not, you should not be afraid to pivot if the data is showing you so.
I know this is a lot to digest, especially as you’re eager to getting started and get the word out about your business. Just remember that marketing doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive when you’re first starting out. The key is to focus on your target audience, be consistent, and always review and learn from your data. With time, effort, and the right tools, your small business can build a brand that attracts loyal customers and stand out in a crowded market.
Let’s chat about how you can reach the right customers, build trust, and hit your business goals—without breaking the bank.
