Small Business Marketing Strategy: Attract and Advocate

Any solid small business marketing strategy to grow your business must establish an online and offline presence. This article provides some marketing strategies for you to use.

Offline attraction strategies

Involvement of the local community: make sure you meet the people of the city. Can you help them better solve their problems? It’s important to make a name for yourself by giving things away, volunteering, and partnering with other businesses to get more attention locally. Basically, you can try anything to be known and liked in your community.

Media Strategies: Many local media outlets (TV, print, and even local news sites) face strong competition from new media, and many are willing to accept your contributions if they are free. If you write a useful and authoritative article on your topic, people will appreciate it. It’s best not to write articles like long ads, just keep it educational and mention your brand or business once or twice.

Online attraction strategies

Run a great website – Running a keyword-rich content website usually works best, which means lots of great information for your customers. In this way, you will appear in the first places of information search engines, which is a great way to present your solutions in the eyes of potential customers.

Social Media – People love local small businesses that go the extra mile and will easily become your fan on Facebook or Twitter. Your followers will write about you, they may tell their friends, and your customer base will constantly grow.

But of course, it’s not just about attracting new customers, it’s also about defending your business against negative attacks from the competition. Here are some ways you can do this.

Offline Defense Strategies

Stay in Touch – Never let your relationships with other local businesses go sour, even when your business is running. Always remember that you are part of a local community and that the people you trusted in earlier times will be your strong allies when the competition gets fiercer.

Treat competitors as allies: When you’re in a small startup, it works well to be friends with the big, established companies in your niche. Introduce yourself, invite business owners over for dinner, and offer to take on smaller customers if they can’t handle them due to their size. You’ll get new customers and other businesses will remember you well, even when you grow up and become your competition.

Online Defense Strategies

Keep churning out positive content – ​​things often don’t last long on the internet. This is why you have to keep writing on your website or social media pages. If a competitor posts a negative article about you, respond with a series of positive articles instead to keep the momentum going on your side. Also, people don’t like slander from other companies that have a vested interest in taking you down.

Start email newsletters: Your competitors will subtly or less subtly try to convince their customers that your brand is preferable to theirs. Publishing a newsletter is one way to combat this. Don’t fill it with ads, but try to write stories and pass along information that builds relationships with your customers. People like to buy from those they like and trust. It’s a low-cost, high-value strategy, though it does require some discipline.

Starting a new business is not easy. On every part of the way, there will be obstacles. The good news is that you’d be surprised how many of your competitors really don’t know what they’re doing, and nowhere is this clearer than on the internet. So follow the tips above, get out there and play ball!