Small business marketing can be expensive, however, it doesn’t always have to be that way.

Before embarking upon any new marketing campaigns, you need to make sure you’re an expert on your customers and competitors:

• Conduct customer research. What do people want and expect from your customers? Before you trial your marketing ideas, it’s best to understand the people you are marketing to. How can your business cater to their specific desires?

• Conduct competitor research. As well as knowing your target customers, you need to understand what every other business in your niche is already offering. Make sure you also know every marketing channel they’re using to reach people with their message.

• Calculate your ROI. Budgeting is crucial for any small business, so before you start spending blindly, you should put your marketing ideas to the price test, and estimate what kind of returns you’d expect to see back for each dollar spent on marketing and advertising.

After determining your target market and estimating your expected ROI, you can start marketing your products and services with these cost-effective methods:

• Build a business website. Create a website to expose your business to a wider audience, create community engagement, and enhance your brand reputation. Building a website is one of the most effective ways of building brand awareness. (you can do that here)

• Implement on-page and off-page SEO. Instead of paying for advertising or deciding to use Google Ads, focus on ways to reach people through free rankings on search engines. rank well on SERPs, boost your online presence, and attract more potential customers.

• Integrate your site with social media. Why pay for Facebook ads, when a well-run Instagram profile can perform just as well for raiding your profile and growing a community around your brand? An easy method to create a seamless multichannel marketing strategy.

There is no reason why your business can’t compete and thrive in the market with online marketing, even when you go up against well-funded competitors.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that there are always ways to find an advantage over better-funded and more established brands. As a small business, you have the benefit of being more flexible and able to hyper-target consumers.

While you might not be able to offer lower prices or blanket media coverage, you can always play to your advantage:

• Target small niches. Find a way to fit your business into the small niches which big businesses fail to fill. Get started by addressing the needs of people big business has left behind.

• Offer superior products. Attract new customers by offering genuinely better products or services than your larger competitors.

• Give personalised service. Forget about impersonal social media profiles or blog posts. Connect with your customers through meaningful, useful interactions. Be unforgettable.

Embrace your underdog status. There are plenty of people who will shop with you, not in spite of you being a small business, but because you’re a small business. Try to come up with marketing ideas that capitalise on that.

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