Small Business Marketing: Low-Budget Marketing Strategies by Wix

Marketing your small business doesn't require a huge expenditure. On the contrary, many effective marketing practices - from creating a website to social media marketing and more - are perfectly doable on a low budget. But with so many marketing options, it might be difficult to know where to start. Should you opt for content marketing? Networking at local events? Creating ads on Facebook?

To help you find the best option for your needs, we've compiled a list of 25 small business marketing strategies you can implement on a low budget. Take a read for inspiration and actionable tips, and use this post for reference as you determine how to market your business.

Small business marketing strategies

1. Create a professional website
2. Know your industry
3. Shape your brand identity
4. Perfect your elevator pitch
5. Create a blog
6. Build a content marketing strategy
7. Write guest posts
8. Optimize for SEO
9. Generate PR buzz
10. Try PPC
11. Write compelling CTAs
12. Craft powerful landing pages
13. Send strategic marketing emails
14. Try social media marketing
15. Generate local awareness
16. Build a brand community
17. Incentivize user engagement
18. Provide free consultations
19. Experiment with guerrilla marketing
20. Maintain strong customer relationships
21. Ask for customer testimonials
22. Attend a conference
23. Network in person and online
24. Look for co-marketing opportunities
25. Build meaningful partnerships

Create a professional website

Building an online presence is critical for spreading the word about your brand. With this in mind, create a professional website for your company that serves as the central hub for all information related to it.

Putting your stamp on the web will strengthen your company's credibility and make it easier for people to discover you. It also gives you the opportunity to create compelling experiences for prospective customers - such as blog posts, videos, eBooks, QR codes, and more - that draw them closer to your brand.

Know your industry

When deciding how to market your business, it's important to know where you stand in relation to your competitors and target audience. By researching other companies in the field and getting to know your desired customers, you'll have a better understanding of which marketing strategies will be most effective for your brand.

To learn more about your competitors, create a marketing plan and do an in-depth evaluation of how you stand in relation to them. This will help you develop a well-informed marketing plan based on your competitors' strengths and weaknesses, as well as perceived opportunities and threats within your industry.

At the same time, conduct market research to learn about the customers you'd like to target with your product. This will allow you to define your target market, analyze the needs your product meets and determine the kinds of people who might benefit from it. Once you've collected enough data, you can create an organized record of your ideal audience by creating buyer personas, or fictional representations of your target customers.

Shape your brand identity

As part of your small business marketing strategy, you'll need to create a brand identity that's compelling for your audience. That includes everything from choosing your brand colors to determining your brand language and tone.

One of the most essential elements of your brand identity is your logo. A good logo can bolster customers' perception of your business and help you stand out from the competition. On top of that, it makes your company look more professional.

Because a logo is the face of your brand, it should accurately portray your business and resonate strongly with your target market. Using a logo maker, you can create a custom logo in minutes to place on your website, social media pages, printed fliers, and more. This step-by-step guide shares important tips on how to design a logo, from choosing the right fonts, selecting your colors and more.

Create a blog

One of the most essential small business marketing practices is to create a free blog. The main purpose of writing a blog is to provide key insights on topics within your niche. However, it also helps improve your website's SEO, as you'll be posting regular updates

By writing actionable, informative content about your industry, you can highlight your expertise and give value to your readers. This will help you establish your brand's authority, improve the perception of your services, and attract and retain customers. These blog templates provide useful inspiration for getting started.

Photo: WIX  

Build a content marketing strategy

Creating a blog is just the first step in building a broader content marketing strategy. Content marketing forms the core of inbound marketing, which uses valuable, engaging content to organically draw customers to your small business.

While blog posts are the most common form of content marketing, there are many more content options you might want to explore. These include (but aren't limited to):

• Webinars
• Online courses
• eBooks
• Infographics
• Podcasts
• Vlogs
• YouTube videos
• Case studies
• Whitepapers
• Slide decks
• Templates
• Quizzes

Choose your content types based on what's relevant to your niche and what your audience connects with most. Whichever formats you select, the goal is the same: to provide information to prospective customers that gently guides them toward your brand.

Try PPC

PPC, or pay-per-click, is a type of internet advertising on Google, Facebook and more in which the advertiser pays every time an ad is clicked. It's a useful small business marketing practice that can generate brand awareness and expand your reach.

While PPC advertising isn't free, its cost per result is lower than many other advertising methods. Even if your marketing budget is limited, it's worth dedicating part of it to creating a handful of ads. Afterwards, you can analyze the results to determine whether they're a worthwhile expenditure for driving traffic to your site.

A call-to-action is a short phrase that prompts swift, immediate action from your target audience. These instructions encourage people to take steps that guide them through the marketing funnel, like subscribing to a newsletter, starting a free trial, or purchasing a product.

CTAs are small but mighty. In fact, their quality can make or break whether a visitor leaves your site or becomes a customer. To write convincing and powerful CTAs, be as short, clear and direct as possible. You should also make it a color that visibly stands out from the surrounding content.

photo: venngage  

Send strategic marketing emails

Email marketing is another effective small business marketing tactic. Provide content that your audience will truly enjoy, such as actionable blog posts or helpful free resources, so that your emails come across as valuable rather than spammy.

Make it a habit to send weekly newsletters that your subscribers come to expect regularly in their inboxes. Once you gain more subscribers on your mailing list, you can send targeted emails based on the interests and preferences of each customer segment.

To get people to sign up for your emails in the first place, reward new subscribers with a special offer, such as a free downloadable eBook or a coupon code to your store.