5 Ways to Market Your Small Business without Social Media
Tired of relying on social media for your small business marketing? Here’s what to do instead. Plus 5 other marketing tips for female owned small businesses.
Relying on social media to market your business can feel like you’re stuck in a toxic relationship with your ex. You know it’s not great for your health and you’re looking for alternatives to marketing your small business as a female entrepreneur.
As small business owners, we know to position our company’s marketing message where our audience is already spending time online and in person. We know our target audience is spending time on social media, yet so few businesses can translate that activity to actual sales.
The algorithm feels elusive because it’s always changing. Everyone has someone we know who seemed to crack the code and gain thousands of followers seemingly overnight. It’s like playing the lottery - fun to think about but not practical.
Marketing Tips for Small Businesses
I’ve spent eight years helping small businesses market and here are five pieces of marketing wisdom I’ve seen work over and over to help small businesses get the word out about their business that work way better than social media does for most people.
Social media is one piece of the marketing pie, but it’s not the whole thing. Here is a guide you can use with 5 Essential Steps to Create a Marketing Plan that Turns Leads into Paying Customers. Use social media to deliver repeat touch points, but don't put all your eggs in one basket.
Actual, real life relationships are more important for building a sustainable business than social media. People, especially women, want to do business with people they know, like, and trust. Nothing replaces being in the presence of and building relationships with real people.
Drive traffic to an online space you own, like your website or email list. Developing a content marketing strategy is an amazing way to create original content that positions your brand as an authority. If you rely on a platform like social media whose goals for how people interact may be very different from - or even in contradiction to - your goals as a business owner. Instead, drive that traffic to a space where you get to call the shots, develop brand rapport, and intentionally lead people where you want them to go. Then, you’ll be all ready to learn how to increase conversion with 4 Expert Tips to Increase Website Sales.
Understand how the buying cycle works - this is the psychological process people go through as they decide to buy. The four basic phases of the buying cycle: Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, and Aftersale - lead your visitors through that process with calls to action, content, and marketing efforts specific to those four phases. By the way, we cover this strategic process in depth in the 6-week Business Bootcamp.
Now that we have marketing basics covered. Let’s turn to 5 Ways to market your small business without social media.
Marketing strategy #1: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Enhance your website's visibility in search engines like Google. By optimizing your website's content and structure, you can improve your ranking in search results. This can bring in organic traffic, making it a long-term investment for customer acquisition. The best part? Once you create a great foundation for your site, you’ll see a snowball effect where your efforts compound into greater and greater amounts of traffic.
The main idea behind SEO is positioning the content on your site to provide valuable answers for Google’s customers. Google’s customers are searchers. Those searchers use the Google search engine to find answers. Sometimes their search intent is to learn and sometimes their search intent is to buy.
If you can create content that provides a great experience for Google’s customers, your site is more likely to be recommended to Google’s customers, who are also your potential customers.
There are a few things Google loves: fresh content, complete answers, sites that are simple to navigate, and sites where visitors can interact (think watching videos, filling out a form, etc.). Here are five tips for improving your site to drive more organic search traffic to your offerings.
Lead visitors where you want them to go with hyperlinked text and call to action buttons. Visitors should clearly see where to go next. Use buttons and hyperlinked text to lead visitors through the buying cycle on the path to conversion. Always lead them forward in the path to conversion and never backward.
Aim for detailed, comprehensive content. That means use more words to paint a complete picture for the audience. Your offerings (sales pages or product pages) should provide an exhaustive idea of what it would be like to experience the benefits of your offering. Don’t leave questions unanswered. Describe your offering in as many ways as you can. Use frequently asked questions. Answer the questions, Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Remember, visitors are unlikely to reach out to you before buying so you want to provide information they could be asking about using your offering.
Use the keywords and keywords phrases searchers are using. Don’t just write “Services,” write “Web Design and Branding Services.” Use specific keywords throughout your copy and place those keywords where Google looks for them: Page titles, hyperlinked text, body copy, alt tags, meta descriptions.
Earn backlinks. When other sites link to yours, it provides credibility. Think of any opportunity for other sites to link to yours. For example, you could send a recently published blog post out to influencers in your industry who may share it with their audience. Or, if you’ve been interviewed on the local news station, see if they can link to your website in their write up. Same with podcast interviews. Backlinks hold a lot of weight in the Google algorithm, so the more sites that genuinely link to yours, the better!
Use video - Google loves video because people love video. Look for opportunities to add video on your site, like in your about page so visitors can get a more intimate feel for who you are as a person, or do a site walk through, or add videos talking through the concepts in your recent blog post.
Marketing Strategy #2: Content Marketing
Develop valuable, relevant content like blog posts, videos, or infographics that address your audience's needs and interests. Putting effort up front to create quality content will yield dividends. Then, share this content across various platforms, including your website, email newsletters, and industry forums. This can establish your expertise and attract potential customers because it establishes trust that you know what you’re talking about.
Remember, your audience needs to hear your message multiple times to become familiar with the idea of buying from you. As small business owners, managing content is hard work.
So here’s a content creation tip: create one piece of long-form content (such as a 2000 word blog post, or a long video, etc.) then repurpose that content across multiple channels. For example, turn a blog post into a 3-part email series, a week’s worth of social media content, a YouTube video, and Google Business posts.
Written content helps position you as the authority on a topic. When your audience sees you as an expert on the topic, they’re more likely to purchase your offering.
Marketing Strategy #3: Referral Programs
There’s a reason why client testimonials are insanely powerful, especially for small businesses. Word-of-mouth referrals often lead to high-quality leads and loyal customers.
That’s because your customers hang out with other people who are like them. They have similar lifestyles. They live in similar (or the same) geographic locations. Their income is often similar, which means their buying power is likely similar.
Creating a system within your business to incentivize referrals can help drive more customers like the ones you’re already serving. When a Wordpress designer refers a customer to me for SEO and CRO services, I heap on the love by sending them a gift card as a thank you.
Why? Because it’s less expensive for me to reward the existing flow of incoming clients to incentive more behavior like that from people who are already working with my prospective clients than it is for me to spend the same money on marketing campaigns. Remember, a general rule is that businesses spend 7-8% of revenue on an annual marketing budget.
People want to do business with people they trust. And, as people, we want to minimize risk, so we look for advice from people who have already faced a challenge like ours. Referral programs are about helping minimize the psychological risk prospective customers feel in trying your offering for the first time.
Marketing Strategy #4: Local Events and Partnerships
Participate in or sponsor local events, fairs, or workshops that align with your business. Partner with other local businesses for cross-promotions or joint events.
Building a presence in your community can foster trust and attract nearby customers. There’s something special about small businesses paired with a local community.
Supporting a small business owner is way more rewarding than helping a big box store earn high profit margins because those small business owners live and work in our own community. Their kids go to the school down the street. Their families are paying taxes and pouring money back into the local economy.
Companies and organizations teaming up to tap into a shared audience can be beneficial because local communities are so ready to rally around the people living and working inside of them.
The key here is to position your message where your ideal audience is already spending time. If you sponsor golf outings, but your ideal client doesn’t golf, you’re going to miss the mark. Your marketing dollars won’t be used in a way that will deliver a return on your investment. That’s why it’s imperative that you know exactly who you’re selling to so you develop partnerships with local events and organizations who are also positioned in front of your ideal audience. Here are two simple steps to figuring out your ideal client as a female entrepreneur.
Marketing Strategy #5: Email Marketing
There are two major reasons I love email marketing. First, you as the small business owner get to deliver repeat touch points on your own schedule. Second, you own your email list and growing it becomes a more and more valuable asset as you build a business you could sell someday. Remember, build assets, not paychecks.
Create a mailing list by offering valuable content or exclusive deals in exchange for email subscriptions. Use targeted and personalized email campaigns to nurture leads, keep in touch with customers, and promote new products or services.
The key here is to actually do it. Don’t just show up in their inbox when you need to sell something. We’ve all unsubscribed from lists we had no idea how we got on in the first place. Keep your audience warm and ready to buy by delivering valuable content in your audience’s inbox regularly. Choose a consistent schedule and stick to it.
Don’t forget - you don’t have to create new content for every email. Use content you’re already creating for other purposes. Make the process and requirements as simple as possible to increase the likelihood you can make it a regular habit.
One more email marketing tip - create a balance between nurturing content and sales content. The right balance if your audience depends on your previous relationship with them, your offering’s price point, etc. There’s no exact science to it. Once company might be able to lean on the side of more sales emails while another company might find it advantageous to sell 25% of the time. You won’t know until you get into a good groove by doing it consistently.
Marketing Strategy #6: Nurture your Google Business Profile
The Google Business Profile is the most underrated marketing tool I’ve found. Google is like your well connected friend who everyone goes to for advice. Including what company to use for services like yours.
Nurture that baby. Use Google products (Google Search Console, YouTube, Google Business Profile) at every opportunity in your small business. They’ve amassed over 80%+ of the search engine market share so of course Google wants to recommend people who are using its own products.
That’s one of the reasons why they position Google Business listings so prominently in the search engine results. Their goal is to create a smooth, seamless experience for searchers. One of the ways they do that is via Google Business listings which give searchers quick access to information relevant to their search.
So how do you leverage this powerful tool? Use the post and event features in your Google Business profile. Direct your clients there to leave Google reviews. Update your profile often. When I work with new businesses setting up their online presence, we nurture the Google Business listing heavily in the beginning by posting and adding events for at least 30 days. We direct customers to leave reviews (and respond to them promptly). This can make a massive difference in your business, especially if you’re focused on serving a local audience.
I shared the advice to optimize his Google Business listing with a small business owner once. He came back two years later and said optimizing his Google Business Profile helped him 6x his business!!
Want a printable list of small business marketing ideas? Click here for 25 Ways to Market Your Business Aside from Social Media.
As a small business owner, you don't’ have to rely on social media for your business to be successful. These alternatives can work hand-in-hand with social media or as standalone strategies, helping you diversify your customer acquisition channels and reach a broader audience.
Female small business resources
Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business (with free access to the resource suite)
25 Ways to Market Your Business Aside from Social Media free PDF
Meet the author, Francie Hinrichsen
Francie Hinrichsen the founder of Founding Females®. She is a business sage empowering female entrepreneurs to breathe life into the business dreams God called them to.
After feeling like a misfit in the corporate world, Francie discovered a life she loved waking up to through business ownership.
Francie is the author of Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business, a guided journal helping hundreds of women start and grow their businesses.
She’s a passionate entrepreneurship hype girl, female leader, public speaker, and community enthusiast.
Her MBA and 10 years in a corporate career and in business ownership positioned her to teach women forward-thinking strategies for starting and growing successful businesses.
As a community leader, Francie realized other women could thrive with the right guidance and support. She created the Founding Females® Mastermind Community that provides a safe space for women to build better businesses.
She believes that anyone with a dream on their heart can pull up a seat to change the world through entrepreneurship.
About Founding Females®
The mission of Founding Females® is to help build a better future for female entrepreneurs through education, encouragement, and shared wisdom. We create safe spaces for women to share business challenges and receive peer support.
In addition, Founding Females offers an online female business mastermind, a how-to guidebook for female entrepreneurs called Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business, and in-person events, like an annual women’s business conference and local Founding Females Meet Ups.
