5 simple ways to market your business when just starting out

Where to start marketing your small business?

Knowing where to begin marketing your small business when you just start out can be daunting. With so many options available it can be difficult to know where to begin and what to spend your precious time on.

If you’re at the start of your business journey and the one juggling all the things when it comes to running your business, my advice is less is more.

Here are my simple tips for getting started with marketing your small business so you can be confident you’re spending your time wisely.

1. Define your audience

Knowing who you are marketing to has to be the first step in every marketing plan you undertake. By understanding who your ideal customer is you can get to know them, see where they like to hang out, learn what makes them tick, realise their frustrations and their dreams - all gold for creating great marketing content.

And drawing up your Ideal Customer Avatar (a fancy marketing term to describe your ideal customer) doesn’t have to be difficult. Ask yourself questions about them. How old are they? What family life to they have? Where do they live? What social media do they use? What books do they read? Where do they go on holiday? Try to think about who you designed your products for, curated your shop to entice or the person who will benefit from your workshop. Sketch out your ideas, giving them a name helps and have this person in mind when you market your business.

2. Make your offer clear

Good marketing has a clear message. A clear offer that compels the audience to react in a certain way. Before you begin any marketing be clear on what your offer is. Try to get it down to a sentence if you can and use this clarity in your marketing. Avoid jargon and business terms to make you sound fancy. There’s no need to be clever just clear. For instance, my message is “I help solopreneurs market their business better with copywriting and marketing tips that don’t need big budgets to work brilliantly” . I want people to understand immediately from my website that I’m here to help them.

It’s tempting to try and share lots on your marketing messaging but don’t get carried away with too many ideas. Too many messages can lead to confusion. So don’t bamboozle them or try to be smart, just be focused and straight-forward and you’ll get your message across succinctly and successfully.

3.Pick a social media platform

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Linkedin - just some of the social media platforms you can use to market your business through social media. But when you’re starting out marketing your small business, I recommend choosing one, just one to start with and getting all over that before branching out to the next. Think carefully about your audience and that pen portrait you created of your ideal customer and choosing your social media platform based on where they are. There’s little point spending your marketing time on Instagram if all your customers are hanging out on Facebook so rather than just go with your favourite, consider where your audience will be and focus your energies there to spread the word about your amazing shop or services.

4. Serve your AUDIENCE

No one really likes a pushy sales person. And as keen as you are to get sales started, be mindful that serving your audience first, is a great way to help your audience get to know your business and build their trust in you so they become ready to share their hard-earned money with you.

So rather than thinking solely about what you can sell them, think about how you can serve them with your products and services. What problems are you solving? How can you help make their day easier? How can you inspire them? What can you teach them?

By sharing content that serves, you’ll increase conversions to sales by building a know, like and trust factor. And starting these good habits right now will mean you’re creating a brand they will want to stick around for.

5. Start a mailing list

A mailing list should be your marketing priority when starting to market your business. Social media is wonderful and a great way to market your business, but it’s important not to put all your business eggs in that one basket and start building your own email list from the get-go.

Create a mailing list that your audience can subscribe to and make it easy to subscribe via your social media and website. Reward their support with subscriber-only offers and content that makes them feel inspired and in the know whilst all the time keeping your brand front of mind.

I’d recommend tempting them to sign up with a discount off your products or services or free delivery. It’s a simple way to encourage sign-ups in exchange for the honour of being able to pop into their inbox with updates and inspiration.

So there you have it. Five simple ways to help you market your business when you’re just starting out. As always, I’m routing for you.

And if you found this useful and are craving a bit more guidance in your journey as a new business owner, you might want to join my mailing list for a regular hit of marketing tips that I’ll send straight to you.