Marketing your small business is more than just “advertising” or “sales”. A holistic marketing approach will review every touchpoint for a customer or potential customer and ensure your small business is being presented in a clear, accurate, and positive manner! Below are a few basic marketing recommendations for small businesses that are sometimes overlooked.
Company Website – You need a website. It does not matter if you run a coffee shop or independent trash-collection business, you need a website. People will search for anything and everything online now so it’s important to have an online presence aside from a location listing on Google Maps (if you even have that). Sure, some people get by with a Facebook Business profile, but if you want to present yourself as a serious business, you need your own website. Be mindful when picking your URL/domain name and setting it up of a few factors:
- Not too long – www.werethebestmarketingcompanyintheworld.com was available, but who has time for all that typing?
- No bad/unintented words like “Speed Of Art” and other accidentally funny/terrible domain names
- Use a site platform you can learn to edit yourself like WordPress
- Like any profession, there are good and bad web designers out there, cheap and expensive, and you don’t always “get what you pay for”. So shop around a little and check out their portfolio before hiring someone to set up your website.
Professional Business Email Address – while many companies use email addresses @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, @hotmail.com, or (gulp) @aol.com, it simply does not look professional. We understand that brand new small businesses are working on a shoe-string budget, but it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg to set up a business email using your company’s website domain. Both Google Apps and Office365 offer Business Email Hosting starting at $5 per account per month. That’s a very small price to pay, considering GoDaddy’s 2014 survey finding that customers are 9 times more likely to choose a business with a professional email address.
Blog / Social Media Updates – If you have a blog or social media profile for your small business, make sure you are adding new content on a regular basis. Whether it’s weekly posts on your social media profile or monthly updates on your blog, putting out new content generally shows readers that you are still in business (really!), focused on your product or service, and knowledgeable. You should aim to update your blog quarterly (once every 3 months) at a minimum.