Best promotional strategies for small businesses

Developing the best promotional strategies can be tough for small businesses. It can be tough to find a way to stand out with so many competitors. Not only that, but you will have to find somehow an idea that won’t cost a lot of money.

Look closer at today’s market, and you’ll find that there are so many new ways you can promote your brand. What’s more, you can launch most of them without spending too much time and money. Even better, we will go through them all in this article!

That’s why I’ll start right away with the best promotional strategies for small businesses. I will even include a few that may work well for your specific industry. More importantly, we will talk about how you can choose the best promotional strategy for your business.

Here are the promotional marketing methods we will discuss:

1. Social media marketing
2. Affiliate marketing
3. Content marketing

#1. Social media marketing

Is it any surprise that I placed this at the top of the list? Nowadays, you’d be hard-pressed to find a spot on Earth where nobody uses social media!

As of October 2021, Facebook had over 2.895 billion users. TikTok recently beat Google as the most visited website globally, so more people want to learn about TikTok marketing.

People spend more time on the internet than ever, especially social media. If you have a business, wouldn’t you want to ensure they spend that time with your brand?

No wonder businesses want to have an online presence! Having a social media profile lets companies gain more potential customers.

Those profiles often have various posts that connect to their product pages. This makes it easier for visitors to purchase products and boost sales as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, it allows them to maintain their existing customers. If they forward their concerns, the company’s social media assistant can immediately respond properly.

Satisfied customers may leave positive feedback, which could help your promotional strategy too. Those support your brand’s quality, so more people are more likely to see it in a good light.

More importantly, it would help if you build yours too. Creating a social media account is a start, but you have to follow it with posts worth clicking.

This means each post should be engaging visitors to your social media page. If it’s about a product, make sure it’s presented interestingly.

What’s more, make sure you don’t just stick with just one platform. Having a Facebook and Twitter page is a safe bet, but your choice should depend on your target market.

If most of your customers are middle-aged people, you might want to focus more on the mainstream options like Facebook. You might gain higher success with a younger audience if you promote TikTok.

#2. Affiliate marketing

This is one of the promotional techniques you may not have heard about. Yet, you may have noticed it while watching a YouTube video when it cut off for a sponsor.

The host may segway to a brand’s products and services while they’re speaking. They will talk more about those goodies, then tell the viewers about their promo code.

People may type it on the product page to get a discount. Some online influencers provide a URL that opens a page with lower product prices. Nowadays, you’ll find this method used more often.

This allows smaller content creators to make more money. On the other hand, it can boost a company’s promotional campaign. Its promotional activities won’t reach everyone.

After all, some niche audiences may not be on the platforms that show the brand’s ads. Instead, they’re likely watching the smaller content creators that meet their needs.

You may pay online influencers to perform this kind of sales promotion. Eventually, they can help you expand brand awareness further. If you need more details, perhaps you should look at a great example.

LeadAdvisors provides one of the best affiliate marketing programs right now. Perhaps you’d like to join it too! Click here to see how it works.

Read More: How Does Post-COVID Marketing Work?

#3. Content marketing

This type of promotion method mostly involves online articles. They may seem strange at first because they don’t directly sell a product or service. How can this help your brand, then?

These blogs contain valuable info that many people would search on the internet. Those aren’t focused on your brand, but it may cite it as a good example for the topic.

Over time, this would establish your brand as a reliable source of helpful tips. This may even encourage them to try your brand’s goods and services.

What’s more, it’s great for gaining more traffic to your website. Your content should link to your product page, so people can easily try your products.

As you post more content, you have a higher chance of reaching the top of search results. Most people never go past the first page, and they stick with the top results.

This is another low-cost promotional strategy. Your small business can start by posting blogs on its website. You may even post links to it on your social media pages.

Make sure people would find something worth their time in your articles. They must learn something useful while having fun. That way, they’re more likely to come back for more blogs.

You may want to perform search engine optimization as well. When you include certain keywords, you will increase your chances of landing at the top of search results.

People should be using those keywords often, and they must be related to your brand. Also, they should blend well with your online article. That way, it won’t turn off readers and the search engine.

Other promotional strategies

Those were the most common methods of brand promotion right now. You shouldn’t stick to these only. Every business has different needs that require a specific marketing mix.

Everything is going digital nowadays, even small businesses. Still, the old ways may work depending on your company. Let’s say your company sells cookies.

Handing out free samples at a supermarket may still be a good way to spread brand awareness. People have too many choices nowadays, so letting them taste your product helps them choose.

This makes it easier for a customer to decide on buying your product or not. You’ve given them an idea of what they’ll get from your cookies, so there’s a better chance that they’ll buy some.

There are so many other promotional strategies you could try. See if the following fits your brand. If they do, perhaps you may apply them to your current marketing campaign:

• Online ads – Many people sometimes find the old banner ads annoying. Yet, this could be your way to reach audiences on lesser-known websites. What’s more, they’re often more affordable than the other marketing methods.
• Email marketing – You may treat brand email as spam, but it’s still an effective promotional strategy. Many online tools can send messages for you at a certain time. Also, they make it easier to send the right emails to the right people.
• Flyers and other print ads – During the pandemic, passing around pamphlets about your brand wouldn’t work as everyone’s at home. The world is slowly removing the COVID rules, though, so this type of promo may work once again. This is a good idea to expand your local marketing reach.

How to pick the right promotional strategy

Having a lot of options could make it harder to choose one. It’s not a good idea to keep testing everyone to see what will stick.

Start by figuring out who your target market is. Find out their interests, so you’ll have an idea of how they use the internet. Let’s take a younger crowd, for example.

Nowadays, more people in their early 20s play video games. This could mean that they frequent various tools and sites related to gaming, such as Twitch and Discord.

In that case, you might want to focus your marketing on those platforms. Now that you’ve found some platforms, find the most effective promotional strategies.

The younger crowd is used to ignoring online ads. If you place them in videos, they will immediately click that “Skip Ad” button. Otherwise, some of them use ad blockers and VPNs.

Meanwhile, they stayed tuned in to their favorite online streamer. This means you may want to pay these personalities to promote your products in the middle of their stream.

That target market is more likely to listen to that person about your brand. As a result, they pay attention to your marketing and are more likely to choose your goods and services.

Digital marketing has been prevalent during the coronavirus pandemic. Now that more countries are starting to relax the curbs, we may meet each other face-to-face more often.

Soon, you may meet clients and exchange business cards normally. The digital methods are here to stay, but you may want to compliment them again with traditional strategies.

Final thoughts

We’re not sure whether or not a major outbreak will happen again. What’s certain is that you must figure out the right promotional strategy for your small business soon.

You want to make sure you can accept customers as soon as possible. That way, you can start earning money again. This is when you’ll need the best marketing method.

Otherwise, you might want to ask the best digital marketing agency to help you: LeadAdvisors. Rest assured that your marketing is in expert hands. Click here to learn more.