Tips for marketing and branding for small businesses

Mar 2 / Flavia Richardson
Every business needs to consider the importance of good marketing. Not only does it promote your services, but it also lets you establish yourself as a brand.

If you have a small business or startup, the right marketing strategy can set you towards a path of success right away. However, marketing may be expensive for some and executing it correctly is no easy task, especially for small business owners.

Luckily for a business in tech, the audience is usually better educated on the use of the internet and online services. This, therefore, lets you market your services more efficiently and in a cost-effective manner without investing heavily in hardware.

Here are some marketing tips for small tech-businesses that you should implement:

1. Have an appealing website

A well-made website not only acts as a bridge to connect clients and sellers, but it also serves as a medium of information for those who want to know about your services. This is true, especially for small tech business owners who can’t afford expensive newspaper or television marketing.

A website helps you achieve your goals and reach your target audience. Since it’s a tech business, you can expect most of your audience to have sufficient knowledge of the internet and websites.

Having a technical background, managing and promoting your website should not be much of an issue. Have a well-designed layout, easy to understand features, various sections, and continuously post new articles.

You can share your business services, achievements, developments, packages, and more in a cost-effective way.

If your concern is UX, then use services like Usertesting.com.

2. Manage your emails

Email is probably the most effective yet simplistic method for communication between sellers and customers. The fact that email marketing doesn’t require much investment makes it a valuable tool to add in the arsenal of small business owners.

However, apart from engaging content and catchy subject lines, as an owner, make sure your emails are visually appealing, configured for mobile viewing, and easy to read for all types of audience.

Moreover, always ask your first-time users to sign up or subscribe to your emails as they navigate through your website. You can also place the signup option in every blog post to make it easier for them to subscribe. Simply do this by adding a popup — signing up box every time a user accesses a page on your website.

Remember to keep the signup process short and simple and don’t ask for too much information. Lastly, try posting at least once or twice a week to keep your readers engaged and continue sending out emails as frequently as possible.

3. Regularly post articles and educational content

Generating traffic on your website is not possible until when you offer something for the audience to chew on. Gaining new customers requires maintaining the credibility of your business in order to earn trust from customers. One effective way of doing so is by posting educative content.

Write quality content relevant to your business that is geared to educating customers about your field and services. Answer any questions they have and let them know how your business can benefit them.

Apart from selling your services, you could also post articles about other fields in the technology spectrum and offer solutions to different tech problems.

Blogging is a valuable source for generating new traffic for small business owners. If you do it right, customers are bound to engage with your brand more and transact with you. Always feel free to hire content writers with experience in your niche if you are not so good a blogger.

4. Create tutorial videos

Consider making instructional videos for a part of your audience who either can’t understand blog posts or don’t have time to read lengthy publications. Doing so makes it easier for customers to understand your goals, business and services.

Videos should be precise, in simple language, and should define a particular service, package or solution to a problem. To make sure you keep customers engaged, you can also make videos on current technology trends and innovations in the industry.

5. Use social media to grow your business

Social media apps like Facebook and Twitter have hundreds of millions of users, and that is exactly where you would want to target your social media campaigns. You can create a Facebook page for your business and post content related to your services, packages, and offerings.

Again, utilizing social media to promote your business doesn’t require financial investments, so small business owners can benefit the most from it. Moreover, if you want a head start, try using paid Facebook ads to reach your audiences’ news feed promptly.

6. Build your brand

Branding is all about who you are and what others know you for. Be clear about what technological services your business offer.

Know how the vision of your business benefits the audience. Be unique in your thought and make your business personality enjoyable.

7. Know your audience

For small businesses, especially, it is essential to know your audience from day one to grow your business. You should understand what customers expect from you and how you plan to meet their needs.
Good branding requires a sound understanding of the target audience.

Once you get to know this, you can use various strategies like advertisements, social media campaigns, blog posts, etc. to better target and reach your audience.

8. Design a catchy logo

Big business or small, all need a well-designed brand logo to catch the attention of a new audience. It serves as the face of your business. For instance, the moment you see a McDonald’s logo, you start thinking about the taste of their burgers, fries, and fried chicken.

The same should go for your business!

Small businesses need more catchy brand logos that can afford them a chance to grow and establish their presence. Therefore, design a logo that delivers your message and fully represents the expertise of your tech business.

Consider hiring professional logo designers to create one for your business since this one-time investment makes all the difference and is worth the money. If you already have a logo that isn’t doing well, consider redesigning it.

9. Grow your community

Follow the footsteps of the world’s leading brands like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, who spend a reasonable sum of money on growing and maintaining their communities.

Small tech businesses have a good chance of growing and improving their community engagement using online sources such as websites, email marketing or social networks. Doing so extends the trust of their customers towards their businesses.

Final words

The right marketing strategy not only builds awareness about your brand but increases sales accordingly. With the advent of online marketing and technology, small scale businesses have an excellent chance to grow and expand their base.

This article is published on Medium.

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