Small businesses often treat marketing as an unwanted pet. They know it exists and they know they have to take care of it, but they get away with the bare minimum.
With rapidly expanding online platforms and the rise of influencer marketing and location-specific keyword targeting, online marketing has truly revolutionized the game for small businesses. Businesses of all sizes can now truly punch above their weight and market their products to a global audience.
The internet and social media have had such an impact on the economy that businesses of all sizes and industries are now compelled to have an online presence. Most business owners already know the basics of online marketing. They may have set up a website on their own, listed the business on Google Maps, or even watched that movie about SEO. However, a lower bar for entry means more competition. Online marketing is a crowded industry and getting the very best services often means setting up a massive marketing budget.
These enormous marketing budgets are often beyond the reach of small and even medium sized businesses. So, here’s a few tips on global marketing on a tight budget:
Reach out to influencers
Influencers are more than just online celebrities. These are people considered trustworthy by a specific niche market. Depending on your industry, the key influencers may not seem like the most affable or social people. That doesn’t matter. Influencers can help you sell services and move product if their word is trusted and their audience aligns with your customer base. Take the time to do your research and find local influencers with healthy traction online.
Get featured on a niche blog
Getting your business featured on the Wall Street Journal may have been your lifelong dream, but you need to start somewhere small. For most small businesses, a quick review or short-form article in a local blog or niche website should do the trick. Targeting niche sites also allows you to clamp down on the marketing budget and get exposure for less.
Create a LinkedIn Group
LinkedIn is for business and if your small business is B2B, there’s really nothing like it. Create a group and an impressive company page to reach out to potential customers, suppliers, and even employees. Engage like-minds on the business social network.
Write an ebook
Writing an ebook on thought-provoking issues within your industry is a surefire way to set yourself up as a ‘thought leader’. Once you have a sizable following or a tightly knit network, marketing becomes a lot easier. Ebooks are great for long-term and timeless content promotion.
Try YouTube
YouTube may not suit every business, for certain consumer facing businesses however it’s a great way to market online. The site gets more than 800 million unique visits every month and some of those people are likely to buy your product if you offer an interesting video talking about it online.
These are just some of the ways small businesses can punch above their weight and market to a global audience. If you’re willing to do the research and content creation on your own, you’ll save a ton of money while marketing to millions of potential customers across the globe.