What’s the best way of marketing your small business in lockdown? It’s a strange new world out there, with everyone staying home and normal sales channels closed. With this new series of articles, Rosie Johns will help you lock down a new small business marketing strategy. We’ll cover a range of topics such as social media and email marketing for small business, as well as lockdown content, discounts and offers, and how to maintain customer loyalty in lockdown. Whether you’re working solo or managing a small team, these tips, techniques and tutorials will help you boost the online presence of your business, reach new audiences and maintain your vital income throughout the lockdown.
Small Business Marketing Roundup:
This, the last article, is a small business marketing roundup – all the most important tips and techniques from this series in one place. So at the end you’ll have everything you need to start marketing your small business (or yourself) more effectively! We’ve even included a free downloadable planner to keep track of your campaigns.
Take a look below at the kinds of marketing activity you can use, and how often it’s good to use them.
Daily:
- One Facebook post
- One Instagram post
- 3-5 tweets (if you can manage it)
Decide on a daily campaign – it could be promoting a new product, running a giveaway or sharing news. Share this message across all three social media channels, but remember to tailor the content to each one. For a quick social media refresher, click here.
Social media is your quick win. Invest just 30 minutes a day into posting on these three main platforms and you’ll be ensuring your audience stay entertained and up-to-date.
Weekly:
- Look back on your social activity
See which of your social posts was most popular – look at engagement (likes, shares, comments) as well as reach (how many people saw the post). Making notes about what kinds of content work best for you will help you create better performing social posts in the future.
Monthly:
- 1-2 email campaigns
Encourage people who love what you do to sign up to your email newsletter. Then commit to sending it out every month! Balance emails that drive sales (like product launches and discounts) with emails designed to entertain (for instance news, interviews). One to two emails a month is plenty. Take a look back at our email marketing tips if you need a reminder.
- 1-2 blogs
If you have a blog, use it as a space to inspire your audience. And I don’t just mean inspiring them to place an order – though that’s part of it. Put up blogs your audience will value, like tutorials and glimpses behind the scenes. Do this once or twice a month.
Use your blogs as email campaigns: if you’ve written a really ace blog, send it out to your email subscribers when it goes live. If you’re sending two emails a month, your blog can be your content-focused email campaign and then you can devote the second email to sales.
Small Business Marketing Roundup
Looking further ahead:
Get excited thinking about what you can do in one, three and six months’ time. Planning for key campaigns will keep you focused and help make sure you’re hitting your targets. Download a copy of the marketing planner below and fill it out every month with your plans and ideas – in no time, your small business marketing strategy will be second nature.
Download your Marketing Planner
Other articles in this series…
Marketing your small business: social media
The first in this series of lockdown marketing guides Rosie Johns takes us on a whistle-stop tour of how to use social media to market your small business effectively.
Email marketing for small business
Rosie Johns builds an all encompassing how-to-guide as we look at another great tool for any freelancer or small business looking to grow their audience: email marketing for small business.
Your lockdown email marketing strategy doesn’t need to be complicated – just one or two emails a month can keep your customers up-to-date and engaged with your business. Click the link to learn a few basic email dos and don’ts – all you need to get started with email marketing.
Lockdown content: marketing your small business
Rosie Johns offers a guide to lockdown content and marketing techniques for small businesses and creatives. What kinds of content should I post and where?
Maintaining Customer Loyalty: Marketing your Small Business
In this guide Rosie Johns looks at something a little more tricky – how to maintain customer loyalty in lockdown.
If you’re used to having a physical base for your business, it’s not easy transitioning to an all-online way of working. And for your customers, who are accustomed to visiting your shop (or workshop, or creative space) it’s not easy either. In order to make sure you’re keeping their interest and loyalty, there’s a number of things you can do.
Small Business Marketing Roundup
In the last article of the series, Rosie Johns offers a small business marketing roundup – all the most important tips and techniques from this series in one place. So at the end you’ll have everything you need to start marketing your small business (or yourself) more effectively!
Do you need additional advice, support or input from a marketing professional? Contact Rosie Johns. Services include individually tailored marketing plans, email marketing, social media marketing and content creation for websites, blogs and other platforms.
Rosie has six years’ experience in marketing and communications, specialising in the arts and creative sectors. She has worked for companies including Cardiff’s Chapter Arts Centre and independent book publishers Seren.
Small Business Marketing Roundup
