The Best Ways To Improve Your Small Business Marketing

Improve Your Small Business Marketing

There is really no best way of marketing your small business. Every market is different, just like every business is different. Australia is a colourful place with different cultures, backgrounds and ways of doing things. This also reflects in your customer’s buying and spending habits.

We have the old-school mining magnate way of doing business, the migrant mum and dad shops, and nowadays we have the Millenials filthy-rich from the cryptocurrency market fluctuations. Marketing for or to each has to have an entirely different approach.

What we can tell you though are some of the best and free ways that you can use to improve your current small business marketing tactics.

Hack #1 – Check Out Your Competition

Since Facebook™ got into a bit of trouble due to the mishandling of some private data, we have since been granted the ability to spy on your competitor’s Facebook™ ads.

Simply head over to your competitor’s Facebook™ page and look for the “Info & Ads” button. The location of it will change depending on whether you’re viewing it from your desktop or mobile, but you can now view the exact ad copy and creative your competition is using.

From an SEO perspective, you can also run a number of free or trial tools that will let you check in on your competitor’s backlinks. Backlinks are a popular and proven SEO method that create trust around your website with Google. Check out what backlinks your competition has, and try to replicate them. Easy! Try this free trial, as an example.

If you need a bit more info on SEO, check out this article.

Hack #2 – Get Reviews & Testimonials

Getting online reviews on Google and Facebook actually impacts two things quite distinctly.

Firstly, it plays into something we like to call social proof. Nobody wants to be the first to try something, and people certainly don’t want to be “burned” by a business. When we see that a business has multiple 5-star reviews we, as consumers, are immediately put at ease that our money isn’t going to be wasted.

Actively fostering reviews by asking previous customers, putting it as a call to action on your print and marketing material, or even on your website, can dramatically increase the number of reviews you actually receive. We all want more, you just have to ask and you’ll find that you’ll probably get.

Secondly, reviews left on Google can positively impact your search engine ranking as well. Google wants to connect its users with credible service providers, and reviews help the algorithm judge that.

You can even create a direct link to leave a review. Just by clicking this link, you can leave a review and thank us for this article. Imagine what leaving one of these in your email signature could do for you?

Hack #3 – Need Facebook™ page likes? Do a giveaway

People often talk about buying page likes for small business Facebook™ pages to essentially buy social proof for their business page, however, we can tell you right now that a cost per like for your local Australian small business, is going to cost you way more than you’re willing to pay. Especially if you’re wanting to get a few hundred likes.

You could buy a few thousand cheap likes from third world countries, but then your page audience is going to be so irrelevant and won’t engage with your content at all and you most likely can’t sell to them either. Unless you’re trying to fake it, you’re wasting your money.

Currently, the easiest and cheapest way to get Facebook™ page likes is by tieing it in with some sort of promotion or giveaway. Officially, Facebook™ considers it engagement bait when you ask somebody to like your page as part of a competition but if you can think just a little bit outside of the box you can get several hundred page likes for a few cents each.

Save a little bit on your Facebook™ advertising budget and give away a $100 voucher for a local restaurant. This will attract local people to your business. Great stuff for small business marketing on a budget!

Hack #4 – Mailchimp Automation

If you haven’t yet heard of Mailchimp now you have. Mailchimp is one of the most popular mass mailing providers out there. Allowing you to create emails in an easy drag and drop fashion for free.

If your mailing list is larger than 2,000 subscribers or you want to remove the Mailchimp logo, you can pay for it but you can get away with not paying while you’re still growing.

What a lot of people don’t know is that there is an automation system you can set up within Mailchimp. This means you can trigger a certain email to be sent automatically, depending on your input criteria.

Want to send your customer an email as soon as they’ve signed up to your list? Easy! What about getting rid of ugly shipping notification emails and replacing them with pretty Mailchimp emails with pictures and product cross-sells? Naturally! Follow them up 2 days later? Of course!

The possibilities are almost endless in what you can do with it and we suggest you set up a sequence of at least 3-4 emails that send out news and relevant content, but more importantly, something that engages in conversation with your email audience. Even if it’s just a thank you for business note. The industry average opening rate for an email list in Australia is about 25%, that’s massive and you should capitalise on that.

So make sure you’re using your email list to market your small business. Finally, you have a use for all those business cards you’ve been collecting.

Hack #5 – Get Social With Us On Social Media

Social media is a wonderful tool but we often get distracted by the shiny advertising that we can do on it.

Bringing it back to its more original function, we have created the Small & Startup Business Community – Perth, WA Group on Facebook™. If you’re a business owner in Perth or anywhere in Western Australia, we’d love to have you join us in there. Use it to ask questions, advertise your business (no spamming please), or mingle, network and do business with people just like yourself. We’re all here to grow after all.

If you’re not in Perth or WA, don’t stress!!! We actually have one of these groups for most Aussie cities and even for our little Kiwi cousins across the pond. Simply search Small & Startup Business Community on Facebook™ and you should find the group for you. If you’re a national business, join them all!

Just another simple and easy way to market your small business, and we’ve already brought the community together for you.

Need Help With Your Small Business Marketing?

If there’s anything that we covered today that’s a bit confusing to you, or you want just a little bit more insight, hit us up on our social media channels, PM us, DM us, tag us, message us, whatever your thing is, we’re there.

You can also always book in a free initial consultation with us to give you a bit of guidance and a second pair of eyes on your business marketing.

Also, check out our small business marketing page for more useful blogs and services we thought might be of interest.

Book a free social media marketing consultation with 3am Ideas, a digital marketing agency for SME’s!

We have tonnes of experience working with business from one man tradies wanting to grow a team, right through to retail, professional services startups, even ASX listed companies.

We’d love to hear about your business, no matter how big or small, let us show you what we might be able to do for you with social media marketing. Book in for a free consultation, coffee is on us!

Subscribe to Keep Up With Our
Guides & Insights!

About 3am Ideas

We are Australia’s digital marketing agency for small businesses and startups. We provide an ROI driven service to our clients. We are especially dedicated to our Business Startup, Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation packages.

We always aim to work intimately with our clients because collaboration guarantees best results. From startups with big ideas or established small & medium sized businesses wanting to take the next step. Gain control over your online presence.