Make it work for you- Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

Starting up a business is never easy, as most of the time you have to be critical with every step that you’re going to take. On top of that, you’ll have to deal with the uncertainty if your business will do well in the long run. Thus, it’s important to be ready with the tools and skills that will help you face the challenges that your business will have in the future.

In order to help new and starting entrepreneurs, we’ve curated a shortlist of marketing tips that can be used as a guide for reaching their target clients.

• Plan Ahead (Target Audience)
  As cliche it may seem, new entrepreneurs or business owners should plan the course of action that they will take once they open up for business. This is applicable for their marketing strategy as well. The team should know who their target audience will be by doing simple things like a Persona Exercise or Research.
• Persona Exercise is the process of trying to create a rough sketch of the people that you will include in your target market. In order to make one, you should try to take note of factors as simple as their age, gender and education to more complicated ones like work, hobbies and what will be their motivation to purchase a product.
• Try doing a Persona Exercise and see what will be helpful for your business.

• Brand Identity
  Now that you’re done doing your research about your target market, you can go ahead and create your Brand Identity. This will help your audience understand what your business is all about. Creating a cohesive style for your brand is important to get the message across your target audience, it also helps them remember who you are!
• Your brand identity can start from your logo, business cards, the colour scheme that you’ll use, and packaging. It also includes your language and tone in your campaigns, and so much more. This will help in setting you apart from your competitors. Remember that nowadays, consumers want to know what they’re getting and how the product is connected to their principles and values. One thing to get you started with your brand identity is conducting competitor research to know how their brand is doing.
• The next thing that you should take note of is how you can be consistent with your branding and how you’ll be able to carry your values and brand philosophy forward.
• This is essential to creating a more professional personality for your brand.
• Let’s end this part from a quote that should tell you how people loves to be connected with the product that they use:
• “If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.” – Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO

• Short Term Goals and Long Term Goals
  It will also be helpful to list your short term and long term goals. By doing this, you can make a list of steps that you have to follow to attain each goal. Having a clear list of your objectives can help you create a path that you want to follow.
• It’s important to have short term goals that can be used as your tracker on how closer you are to achieving your long term goals. Your short term goals may consist of creating your page, looking for the perfect spot/ location for your business and setting up all the requirements for you to launch it. You can also include the persona exercise as part of your short term goals and add your plans for the brand identity to that.

• Use promotional Tools
  We’re down with using promotional tools to let your business be seen and be heard in the market. Nowadays, as more people are joining social media, it’s easier to reach out to your target market using different social media platforms. Why not utilise these platforms for your business campaigns right?
• If you have a budget, you can set-up an advertising campaign so that you can pick the demographics of the users who will see your advertisement/s. If you don’t have a budget, you can use your connections and ask your friends to like and share your newly created FB Page or new posts!
• If you have a budget or you have the skills to create your own website, why don’t you try writing Blogs or creating Vlogs about your business and your products as well? As mentioned, consumers want to know what they’re getting so creating contents for them will be really helpful.
• Social media marketing has so much potential and we need to be ready to seize all the opportunities that we can get from using these online platforms.

• Work with other local businesses
  Another marketing strategy that small businesses can use is to partner up with other local businesses. It’s a way of supporting and promoting each other. By doing so, you will not only gain support from each other’s loyal customers but you will also gain a potential long term business partner. A strategic partnership is helpful not just for your business but for your employees and customers as well.
• Doing partnerships with other local businesses can help you in many ways. First is that you can grow professionally as you have to work with other people from another field. Another benefit is that working with other people invites creativity and innovation. Last but not least on our list is that both businesses can expand their market.
• Fostering good relationships with local businesses will always be beneficial for all the parties involved. Try to look for a potential local business that you can have a partnership with!