Introduction
Creating the right marketing strategy for a small business can be challenging. Each business has unique goals, budgets and products meaning there is no one size fits all strategy. The digital ecosystems presents many opportunities for growth, but it can be a challenge to pick which avenues are most suited to your businesses needs.
Table of Contents
Google Search Ads
Google Search Ads are a popular choice for marketing a small business. By targeting keywords that are relevant to your business, you can capture in-market traffic with a high intent to convert. Its strength lies in being able to target consumers who are “solution-aware” (stage 3 of product awareness), but have not yet picked a specific product or service to solve their problem.
Google Ads is one of the easiest channels for directly measuring impact, and having measurable results is crucial for a small business where every $ spent on marketing needs to deliver a return.
Useful Resources:
Facebook & Instagram Ads (Meta)
Meta’s strength lies in its broad reach and advanced targeting capabilities. It can help small businesses to scale faster and build awareness with new customers. The benefit of Meta versus Google is that you can reach customers in the early stages of the awareness journey. They may be unaware (stage 1) or problem-aware (stage 2). By leveraging Meta’s AI, you can show ads to people who may be interested in your product but are not actively looking for it. To effectivly test & scale Meta, you will need a larger advertising budget as well resources to create content. This could be simple static ads, however short form video & UGC are going to deliver better results.1
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO can be important for a small business, but it is a long-term investment that typically takes months to years to yield results. There is a significant upfront time investment in producing content, an ongoing commitment to keeping content up to date, and no guarantee that your content will rank well on search engines.
It can be particularly difficult for smaller businesses in well-established industries to gain a foothold, as older, more established brands benefit from cumulative SEO gains.
Whether SEO is right for your business depends on several variables and should be treated on a case-by-case basis. Some questions you can ask are:
- Do you need immediate results, or are you willing to invest now for returns later?
- Do you have the resources to write new and insightful content?
- Do you have the resources to technically optimise the content once it’s written? (For example, adding code to your website to help crawlers understand your content.)
Useful Links
- Technical SEO for Webflow websites
Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)
AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) is a new term for optimising content to appear in AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google’s AI summaries. This is an emerging field, and there are many different theories about how to successfully optimise for AI-generated content. One common consensus is that recent, up-to-date content is more likely to appear in AI results than legacy content. As a general rule of thumb, good SEO is also good AEO, and you can work towards both goals simultaneously.
LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn is the home of B2B marketing, and is only suitable for certain types of small businesses. It is an expensive platform to advertise on, and small businesses should have a larger advertising budget if they are looking to trial LinkedIn. The benefit of LinkedIn is it’s high quality first party data that can be used to build highly tailored audiences. There are many facets to running LinkedIn ads, and strategies should be built on a case by case basis, but some general tips include:
- Leverage lead gen forms for lead generation, these will outperform landing pages.
- Make sure to add audience exclusions to you campaigns and not just inclusions.
- Utilise short form video where possible, this has the best engagement rates.
Useful Links
Bing Search Ads
Bing Search Ads are very similar to Google Search Ads but run on the Bing search engine. Bing has a much smaller reach compared to Google; however, it typically offers a lower cost per click. I’d recommend starting with Google Ads and expanding to Bing if you are achieving good performance.
Google Shopping Ads
Google Shopping ads are specifically for e-commerce businesses looking to sell products on Google surfaces. Similar to Google Search Ads, these ads are lower funnel, where customers are closer to purchasing. They can be a good option for a small e-commerce business, as they allow you to show visual listings to customers with high buying intent.
Organic Social
Having an active organic social presence can help build trust and legitimacy in a small business. Many customers will look for social proof when engaging with a new brand, and having recent, relevant content can be a huge boost to this. It is difficult to measure the return on this; however, I would recommend all small businesses have at least some organic social footprint. A good option for service-based businesses is to share reviews and testimonials from customers.
UGC
User generated content can improve a brands authenticity and help connect with different customer cohorts. It is an extremely good approach for social media marketing and pairs well with Meta AI audience targeting. Creating engaging content for social media can be a challenge and partnering with a creative strategist can be extremely beneficial. They will be able to guide you with content ideation, how different hooks suite your brand and creating content that holds peoples attention.
Email Marketing
Email marketing can deliver extremely high returns when done correctly; however, you need a high-quality first-party list to see real results. It should primarily be used as a re-engagement channel for email list subscribers or existing customers. Cold prospecting email campaigns typically have low engagement rates and can negatively impact your brand’s deliverability and perception.
- There should be a reason for the email you send. Don’t send for the sake of sticking to a marketing calendar.
- Enrich your data with customer tags. This will allow for more tailored emails to different customer cohorts.
SMS marketing
SMS marketing can have the highest engagement rates of any channel, however similar to email marketing, this relies on a having a high quality first party list of existing customers you can send promotional texts too.
Other Considerations
There are several other digital channels a small business could advertise on, including self serve programmatic display ads (such as StackAdapt), Reddit Ads, Pinterest Ads & Google Display Network. Whilst these do have there place, these will typically be a low priority for a small business.
Footnotes
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Some types of small businesses, such as service-based businesses, can achieve good results on Meta using messaging ads. When paired with offer-focused creative, this can be an effective lead generation approach. ↩
