Small Business Marketing Strategy: Critical Concepts

For small businesses, marketing isn’t just about reaching more customers; it’s about building a sustainable, loyal customer base that understands and values what your business offers. In this guide, we’ll answer key questions around small business marketing strategy to help you make informed decisions, from creating a targeted plan to selecting the best marketing channels. This strategy can elevate your business and guide you to long-term success.

What Is a Good Marketing Strategy?

A good marketing strategy begins with clarity around your audience, goals, and message. It’s not just a one-size-fits-all approach but a detailed plan that focuses on reaching your ideal customers effectively. The most effective strategies take the time to define a buyer persona — a comprehensive profile that represents your ideal customer. This persona drives all future marketing decisions and ensures every message resonates with the people who are most likely to buy your products or services.

Developing a buyer persona involves several key steps:

• Identify demographic details: Define characteristics like age, income, and location, specific to the audience you want to attract. For instance, if you’re a business-to-business (B2B) company, you may focus on company size, job titles, or annual revenue. A business-to-consumer (B2C) company might look at factors such as household income, lifestyle, and spending habits.
• Analyze behavioral traits: What motivates your customers? What challenges do they face, and how does your product solve these? Understanding these factors can shape your messaging.

Example: Suppose you're a fitness brand targeting professionals in their 30s with busy schedules. Your marketing could focus on the convenience and effectiveness of quick workouts. The imagery should reflect relatable scenarios, such as someone working out at home before heading to work. In contrast, using pictures of a college student at a gym might not connect with this audience.

Using free resources like HubSpot’s buyer persona tool can simplify the creation process, providing a clear foundation for every marketing decision.

How Do I Create a Marketing Strategy for a Small Business?

Creating a strong small business marketing strategy requires focusing on a few essential elements that ensure alignment with your audience’s needs. Start with a clear and compelling marketing message. This message should communicate your business’s unique value in a way that directly benefits your customers.

A useful marketing message includes six essential steps:

1. Identify the customer’s problem: Begin by outlining the pain points your product or service addresses.
2. Introduce your company as the solution: Show your customers why you’re the right solution, emphasizing how you help them achieve their goals.
3. Offer a plan to succeed: Detail the steps or benefits customers will experience when they choose your business.
4. Specify a call to action: Prompt potential customers to take specific actions, such as contacting you or signing up for a trial.
5. Highlight the benefits of success: Illustrate how life improves with your service, fostering confidence in the purchase decision.
6. Show what’s at risk if they don’t act: Highlight missed opportunities to emphasize the value of choosing your business over competitors.

Small Business Marketing Tip: Avoid talking solely about your company’s achievements. Instead, keep the focus on the customer’s experience and how their lives improve when they engage with your product or service.

What Is the Best Way to Market a Small Business?

The best approach for small businesses is to use a multi-channel marketing strategy that targets customers across various stages of their journey. The buyer’s journey consists of four main stages: Awareness, Consideration, Decision, and Support. Different channels work best at different stages, so choosing the right ones for each is crucial.

Awareness Stage

At this stage, potential customers learn about your brand, often through channels like SEO, social media, and paid ads. Content marketing, such as blog posts or infographics, can also help attract new audiences. The goal here is visibility — making sure people know you exist.

Consideration Stage

Once customers are aware of your business, you’ll want to nurture their interest by sharing more detailed content like case studies, testimonials, or in-depth guides. Email marketing campaigns can keep your brand top of mind and encourage prospects to learn more.

Decision Stage

At the decision stage, customers are ready to take action. This is where calls to action (CTAs) can drive conversions. Ensure your website, landing pages, and sales materials are optimized for quick, easy decision-making.

Support Stage

After a customer makes a purchase, your work isn’t done. A successful strategy includes post-purchase support, customer service, and ways to turn satisfied customers into repeat buyers and advocates.

Small Business Marketing Ideas

• Build a presence on social media platforms where your audience spends the most time.
• Use YouTube to create tutorials or showcase customer testimonials.
• Engage with your local community by attending or sponsoring events.
• Explore underused channels, like billboards or print ads, if they fit your audience.

How Do Small Businesses Market Themselves?

Marketing requires consistency, and one of the best ways to achieve this is by implementing a structured marketing calendar. A marketing calendar lays out your entire plan, keeping you organized and ensuring that you’re posting and advertising consistently. This helps potential customers remember your brand and builds trust over time.

When setting up your marketing calendar, consider these factors:

• Plan for seasonality: For instance, real estate agents may allocate more of their ad budget for the busy summer season, while event planners may adjust for wedding or trade show seasons.
• Set consistent posting schedules: This is especially important for social media. Posting randomly can hurt visibility and engagement, so stick to a regular schedule.
• Batch content creation: Creating content ahead of time allows you to stick to the calendar even during busy periods, helping maintain consistency and saving time.

Measuring Success with KPIs

Establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) lets you track the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. KPIs can be broken down into two main types:

• Lagging indicators: Metrics such as sales or revenue, checked monthly or quarterly, to see the final impact on your bottom line.
• Leading indicators: Early indicators like website traffic or social media engagement, monitored weekly, which give you an opportunity to adjust if trends aren’t meeting expectations.

Example: Imagine you’re running a digital ad campaign aiming for 20 new sales per month. Your website analytics show that only 5% of ad clicks turn into contacts. By increasing ad impressions or improving the ad’s appeal, you can impact this leading indicator and move toward your goal.

Testing and Adjustment

Marketing is an ongoing process of testing, learning, and improving. By monitoring your results regularly, you can make informed adjustments to your strategy. Testing different messages, formats, or offers helps identify what resonates most with your audience, maximizing your return on investment (ROI).

Consider using tools like Hotjar to analyze user behavior on your website, such as where they click, scroll, or hover. Survey tools like SurveyMonkey allow you to reach out for feedback, gaining insights directly from customers that can guide future adjustments.

Building a small business marketing strategy may seem daunting, but by following these steps, you’ll create a system that meets your needs and scales with your growth. By consistently testing, adjusting, and refining your approach, you can set your business up for lasting success.

Marketing Success with Mazloy

Mazloy offers a monthly marketing reporting and consultation service. It’s a simple and affordable fractional CMO package that helps business owners spend their time where it’s most valuable (which is not trying to figure out how marketing works).

In the package, you get a 90-day plan, a 1 hour monthly meeting, and a weekly 15-minute check-in.

90-Day Plan

• Define the Wildly Important Goal (WIG) — what you’re trying to do, and what winning looks like
• Create your marketing calendar to show the big picture
• Specify KPIs to ensure the strategy we’re executing is aligned with your success

1 Hour Monthly Meeting

• Review key metrics — leading and lagging key performance indicators
• Discuss upcoming opportunities
• Pivot the marketing calendar to reflect reality (this is kind of important)

Weekly 15-Minute Check-In

• Select bite-sized commitments — tasks for you to do to accomplish your WIG
• Celebrate your success — because you’re killing it!
• Adjust to account for any misses

If you follow these marketing concepts you’ll find yourself on the path to success. If you find yourself anywhere dark or unfamiliar, just let us know. We’ll bring flashlights.

Ready to get started? Download Mazloy's Marketing Strategy Template to see exactly how we organize a marketing strategy for small businesses like yours.