Most small businesses, especially the new businesses, are working with a limited marketing budget. And they have to maximize this marketing budget while still competing with larger companies for their target audience’s attention. So how do you stay competitive in the digital marketing place while working within a strict budget?

Unfortunately, there is no one magic marketing strategy for small businesses. However, there are a handful of marketing strategies for small businesses that have proven to get the most bang for their buck, so to speak. These marketing tactics allow you to do a lot more with a smaller budget because they provide a high return on investment, no matter what industry your business is in.

Here are just a few of the top marketing strategies for small businesses along with some advice on how to use them to grow your company:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is one of the most important marketing strategies for small businesses. SEO is the process of optimizing your site structure and content to make it easier for search engines to crawl or “read.”

By making small changes to your site and developing relevant content that is keyword rich, you can work to rank higher on the search engine results page. The higher you rank on Google, the more opportunities you will have to drive new traffic to your web pages.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is at the center of most marketing strategies for small businesses. Content marketing is the process of creating and publishing quality content that is relevant to your target audience and provides some time of value for readers or viewers. The key to developing great content marketing is knowing what your audience cares about most, including their greatest challenges, needs, and desires.

In the end, content marketing provides an attractive return on investment for any brand because you can continue to share and promote content long after the original piece is published.

PPC Advertising

PPC, or pay-per-click, advertising is a type of online ad model that allows small businesses to display their ads to people searching online for relevant products and services.

Pay-per-click works just like it sounds – you pay each time a consumer clicks on your ad content.

Though Facebook and other ad platforms use the pay-per-click model, we are going to focus on PPC ads that are displayed on Google and other search engines.

Facebook Advertising

According to Facebook, there are 2 million small to medium-sized businesses advertising on this social media platform.

And that should come as no surprise given that Facebook ads are one of the most effective and least expensive marketing tools to advertise your products to nearly any niche audience.

No matter what industry you are in or who your target market is, there’s a good chance that you can reach your target buyers on Facebook.

One of the greatest advantages of Facebook ads are the sophisticated targeting features. While other ad platforms may have you guessing as to who is really seeing your ads, Facebook helps you narrow down your audience so that only relevant consumers can see your ad content. The platform allows you to target your audience based on a number of characteristics including location, age, gender, online behavior, and other factors.

Social Media Marketing

The first step in developing a social media marketing strategy for your small business is choosing which channels to spend your time on. You want to consider both which social media platforms your target audience uses most often as well as which social media channels provide the advantages that can help you reach and engage your audience.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the best marketing strategies for small businesses. Most consumers are not going to purchase from your brand the first time they visit your site. That’s why it’s important to find ways to keep in touch with these consumers after they leave. Once you have captured your visitors’ contact information, you can nurture these leads. And email marketing is a great strategy for lead nurturing.

Email newsletters are also a great way to stay on top of your customers’ minds while letting them know about your latest promotions.

Start Using these Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses Today

Just because you have a small marketing budget, doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of these powerful and profitable marketing strategies for small businesses.