4 Ways to Market a Small Company

You ever look at marketing advice and feel like you’re not the target audience?

“Simply put a video on YouTube and get thousands of views and boosted website traffic!”

Ok, great. Now all your small business has to do is rent equipment to create a quality video and use your staff’s time to create the video when they’re already stretched too thin with existing responsibilities. Not to mention it’s hard to go viral, especially when your company is still trying to become established.

There are numerous examples of exaggerated marketing advice online. Everyone’s an expert, but the tips don’t always match realistic possibilities of small companies. We work exclusively with smaller businesses, and there are a variety of practical marketing strategies. Here are four of many options.

1) Google My Business and Bing Places.

Google+ didn’t end up working as a social media platform, but Google My Business is a huge factor when it comes to local SEO. On Google, you can have a profile page for your business, much like a Facebook or LinkedIn profile.

Google My Business is free to set up. You can list your name and description, add photos, adjust where you are on Google Maps, and even post updates or events. When people type in your business in the search engine, they’ll see this information in the search results without needing to click to your website.

2) Social Media Paid Ads.

This strategy is fairly cheap depending on your target audience and your industry. Generally, we have seen clients spend less than one dollar per click.

Facebook and LinkedIn are the two most popular social media platforms we’ve seen for advertising. LinkedIn can be great for targeting professionals, but it’s also much more expensive than Facebook.

3) Local and Community Sponsorship.

People like it when a company embraces their city and wants to make a difference. Sponsoring local events and sports teams is a great way to get your name out there and plant yourself in your community.

Engagement is one benefit of sponsorship, but a digital benefit is that you get links back to your website. Event websites and landing pages will have your logo listed as a sponsor with a link, which will send referrals to your website.

4) Promotions.

Do you want more customers? Give them incentives to take a chance on you. Have large sale events with discounts or offer free products and services every now and then. Taking a small hit in revenue is worth it if you can gain more long-term customers as a result.