MARKETING IDEAS FOR SMALL BUSINESS

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Small Mom and Pop businesses are going under by the dozen daily in this troublesome economy, but there are several free or lower cost Marketing  ideas for small business. Tiny retailers will continue to fail as shops like Walmart and Target continue to fight it out for market domination by offering ridiculously low prices on everything from clothing to electronics to nutrition.

When small businesses fall victim to this unbeatable competition, people lose their livelihoods and communities lose irreplaceable resources.

So how is a small business to stay floating in these tricky times?

Folk who have a brick and mortar business have their battle in their hands particularly if they sell anything which is sold by these giant chains.

To promote the product successfully, you have got to be an expert and unique in what you do and provide best buyer services to attract and keep customers.

Look at what the major chains don’t offer and you’ll see that shopper service is a thing of the past, their stores all look the same and if they haven’t got what you need, you are sunk. Local businesses are what make a community and folks who’ve selected to start their own businesses have a passion for what they do and they really like to help when was the last time that happened in your local Big Box Store?

Google is doing everything to inspire small local businesses to get an internet site. If you have a highly specialized business your website can right away become number one when a person searches for Your Town and your consultant service. Just this simple lower cost Marketing solution can bring in hundreds of new shoppers. For a small charge you can be listed in local directories, your local Chamber of Commerce and on Angie’s list, which should sum up to more visibility and less cost than any costly mag or weekly newspaper ad, and don’t forget mobile web access.

Many small business owners are also convinced that starting and maintaining a site will cost them a lot of money and is tough.

Offering cheap internet site construction and maintenance for small local businesses has become a small-scale industry in itself.

Little local businesses should always have a domain offering a brief description of what they offer, what they concentrate on doing, a map to where they’re found, opening hours and contact numbers and an e-mail address, any successful use of income-producing Google Adwords and affiliate advertising on those sites, can become a very pleasant bonus. By offering an opt-in box, a small business website owner can make a list, and then offer discounts and specials to those customers by initiating a marketing campaign.

Web businesses have a much harder task on their hands. They have much larger competition and must employ SEO and a myriad of other marketing strategies, especially to build a list of customers.

A site’s popularity reflects a bunch of things: the age of the site, the consistency with which it is updated, the value of its content and the relevancy of its content and the number of back-links it has. Just like a small high street business, a site should offer helpful info, great shopper service and brand itself as being unique. It’s about attraction marketing.

There are many options to look at and get your self and your business online andmove into the world wide web of Marketing, but I personally like to follow the person that has already  blazed a trail and follow them as I don’t have or want to spend years through trial and error learning what and how to get up and running, do you? Would you like to find out How to do it in no time at all?

Beach!