Marketing your small business is no easy feat. The sheer noise from other brands is almost overwhelming for consumers.

From the moment they wake up until they go to sleep at night, they see ads on billboards, hear promos on the radio, and come across posts on social media. Advertisers send info to email inboxes, real-life mailboxes, and through the television screen.

Small business owners often drive innovation in today’s market. They’re responsible for about 75% of new jobs created. They work out of garages, shared office space, home offices, and leased space. To stand out in the symphony of marketing efforts, you have to look at some tried-and-true strategies while also implementing unique ones.

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10 marketing strategy examples for your small business

We spent some time thinking through the different types of promotions we’ve seen in the past couple of years. Here are 10 marketing strategies that seem to work well for most businesses. We’ve also included a few examples so you can see how it all works in the real world.

1. Give away lead magnets

Lead magnets aren’t new, but they are still an effective way to bring in customers without spending a ton of money. Figure out what information people need, such as an ebook on how to install new furniture or redecorate on a budget.

Your lead magnet must solve a pain point for your customers in some way. Offer the ebook or webinar in exchange for their contact information. Keep your form short and simple so people are likely to sign up. Once you have their contact information, you can follow up with them and see what you can do to meet their needs.

HubSpot offers lead magnets to gather site visitor data and continue outreach. For example, they offer a free demo of their products so people can try them before they buy. The idea is that they will love the service so much, that they’ll sign up permanently.

2. Design a content experience

A content experience goes beyond just writing an article or adding a video. It also utilizes excellent design to draw the user in and create an overall feeling of positivity. An effective content experience results in higher conversion rates and helps you stand out from the competition.

One example is a furniture store that adds an option to the product details page where the user can use a smartphone to place a virtual model of the item in their living space. They can see what it looks like and how well it fits, as well as compare color schemes.

3. Tap into user-generated content

The power of user-generated content (UGC) can’t always be measured but is a powerful word-of-mouth marketing tool. You might invite people to post photos on social media showing them using your product. Run a contest for the best poem about your brand. Invite graphic artists to create a new ad and choose one to run.

Many brands tap into the power of social media and UGC to drive marketing. For example, SheIn sells a variety of clothes. They’ve encouraged users to share unboxing videos, which they call “clothing hauls” on TikTok and YouTube. People show off what they got and help build the global community of SheIn fans.

There are so many ways you can tap into UGC and ease some of the burdens of constantly curating things to share on social media, as well as get your users involved.

4. Turn to experiential marketing

Many marketers struggle with return on investment (ROI). Their concerns include the quality of lead generation and the number of demos and trials they can offer. One solution is adding experiential marketing to create something unique and memorable for potential customers.

Lean Cuisine turned the diet industry on its head by adding a display in New York City that was a gallery of scales. The catch? None of the scales actually worked. They were a way for women to write down how they wanted to be weighed instead of based on body weight.

5. Share reviews

Around 97% of shoppers turn to online reviews before deciding to buy. What others say about your brand often has much more weight than what you say yourself. Ask your loyal customers to share a few words and rate you.

Suja offers juice shots, cleanses, and cold-pressed green juice. To show the advantages of using their brand, they also list various reviews on their product pages. By showing the raves from other users, they convince newbies to give their products a try.

Link to reviews on outside sites such as Google and Facebook. Add some customer testimonials to put a face behind the praise.

6. Support local groups

Get your name out in the local community so your neighbors turn to your brand before anyone else. Support a little league team and get your name on their T-shirts. Their parents are likely to buy from you.

Give talks to senior groups or host events and invite everyone you’d like to reach in a certain neighborhood. Look for ways to help the place where you live and work and improve brand image at the same time.

7. Improve your website

Ensure you’re getting enough inbound traffic by creating excellent content and posting it regularly. Tap into major inbound marketing strategies, including a conversion prompt, such as a coupon for their purchase. Make sure your website is ready for your audience by honing it down to a single goal.

A global survey of about 2,300 organizations found an average score of only 41% for customer experience across all types of companies. Your website is often the first thing people see of your brand. You can improve it by improving the user experience and your interface. Make sure everything works seamlessly so the experience is not interrupted at any point.

8. Create visuals

Videos and photographs are popular with most people because they are easy to absorb, and you can say a lot more in a short video or relevant image than with text alone. Add videos to your website, upload them to social media platforms such as Vimeo and YouTube, and use them for onboarding new customers.

Think about how you can tap into your knowledge and build a brand name for being the most knowledgeable in your field.

One example of a company using photographs to bring in new customers is Warby Parker. It takes artsy-looking images or just plain fun ones, such as a guinea pig in glasses, and uploads them to Instagram and other social media sites to get some buzz going. The key is to be unique.

9. Team up with affiliate programs

Affiliate marketing can help you bring in more money while also adding a more powerful name to your company. For example, you might tap into a huge corporate affiliate program and add boxes to your site linking back to them.

It doesn’t cost you anything but time to add a couple of affiliate links to your site, and it just might help add to your streams of income.

10. Teach others

One of the best ways to build brand awareness is by showing off what you know. Teach others a new technique or do a demo of your products. Think about some of the home shows you’ve visited where they demonstrate with cookware or knives. People clamor to buy the item at the end of the demo.

Takeaway

Try new ideas and keep replacing low-performing items without a great ROI. Over time, your marketing efforts will gain better results. The only way you lose is if you stop trying new things and getting your name out there.