Running a small business? That means you’re probably the boss, the team, and the backup plan all rolled into one.
Marketing your business probably feels like an overwhelming task to take on, especially if it’s one of a thousand things on your plate. But it's a good thing that you landed on this page, because we’re about to teach you all the practical small business marketing tips that actually work.
So, without further ado, let’s jump right in as we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.
Small business marketing is simply how you get the word out about what you do, who you help, and why someone should pick you. It’s all the strategies and tools you use to attract new customers, keep the ones you’ve got, and grow your brand without needing a huge budget or a giant team.
Of course, knowing what marketing is and knowing how to do it well are two different things, that’s what we’ll look at next.
Every marketing campaign starts with a solid foundation. You definitely need a good product or service—because let’s be honest, no amount of marketing is going to save your business on its own.
Let’s go over a few important pointers.
First thing’s first—the absolute core of your business is something called your Unique Value Proposition, or UVP for short. That’s basically what you do better than anyone else. The thing that makes your business different. Unique.
To figure it out, start by listing what you offer. Then, look at what your competitors are doing. What do you do better? Maybe it’s your process, your product, your personality—whatever it is, that’s your edge.
Once you’ve nailed it down, use it everywhere. On your website, in your social media posts, when you talk to customers—it should be the thread that runs through all your marketing. A clear UVP helps people instantly understand why they should choose you.
Spoiler alert: “Everyone” is not your audience.
Take time to define your target audience in detail. Who are they? Consider factors like:
More importantly, what problems are they trying to solve that your business can help with?
A helpful exercise is to define your buyer persona—essentially, your perfect customer. The better you understand your ideal customer, the easier it will be to tailor your marketing campaigns to speak to them directly.
Now that you know what you’re offering and who you’re targeting, it’s time to figure out where and how to reach them. In marketing terms, this means choosing your growth channels—the platforms or tactics you’ll use to find and connect with customers.
There are tons of marketing channels out there, but not all of them will make sense for your business.
Ask yourself: Where does my audience actually spend their time? If they’re always on Facebook or Instagram, those could be your go-to channels. If they’re searching Google for answers, then SEO and maybe Google Ads should be on your radar.
Online marketing training platform Growclass says a growth strategy is just a structured, data-driven way to test what actually works to bring in and keep customers. Picking the right channels is part of that process. It’s less about doing everything, and more about experimenting and doubling down on what delivers results.
Before you launch any campaigns, set specific marketing goals for your small business.
Use the SMART criteria for goal-setting: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. If you’re not sure where to start, think about the one metric that would most help your business grow—whether it’s sales, leads generated, bookings, or something else—and build a goal around improving that number.
By defining these goals early, you can focus your marketing efforts on achieving clear, measurable results. Once your campaigns are up and running, track your progress and adjust as needed.
No website? You're basically invisible.
Even if most of your marketing is offline or via social media, you’ll want a central spot that you control where interested people can learn more and connect with you. Don’t worry, your website doesn’t need to be elaborate or expensive to build. The key is that it should clearly communicate the basics: what you offer, who you serve, and how to contact or buy from you.
For those who aren’t tech-savvy, the good news is that there are plenty of easy website builders (we’ll cover some in the toolkit section below) that allow you to create a professional-looking site without coding.
Okay, so what are the tools you need to market your small business? Depending on what you want to do, here are some options for you. 👇
Using an email marketing tool means you can consistently stay in touch with customers through newsletters, special offers, etc. Just set up your campaigns and let the software do the sending.
Email marketing is also one of the most effective channels for ROI. On average, businesses see about a 320% return on investment from email marketing.
📌 Our favorites:
A CRM system is a tool that helps you keep track of your customers, manage leads, and stay organized with sales, marketing, and communication—all in one place.
You can see at a glance who your customers are, what they last purchased, or when they last contacted you, and any notes about their preferences. As your business grows, having this data is gold because it helps you personalize your marketing. You can send special offers that are relevant to your customers, which is far more powerful than generic campaigns.
📌 Our favorites:
No website = no credibility in 2025. If you don’t have a website (or aren’t happy with your current one), website builder tools are your best friend.
Your website is often the first impression of your brand, so using a good website builder to make it look sharp is well worth it. They offer pre-designed templates and drag-and-drop editors that make design simple, even for beginners.
Many of them also include built-in SEO tools to help your site rank better on Google. With a modest monthly fee, you can maintain your site easily and update content any time.
📌 Our favorites:
Do you need to schedule appointments, consultations, or meetings as part of your business? If so, an online scheduling tool will save you countless hours and headaches. Rather than emailing back and forth with clients (“What time works for you?”), you can use a tool like YouCanBookMe (YCBM) to let clients book a time slot based on your availability.
Scheduling tools automate the entire process. Clients can see open time slots, book themselves, and even get confirmation and reminder notifications without you lifting a finger.
If you deal with meetings across time zones or have a lot of appointments, a scheduling tool is a lifesaver. It accounts for time zone differences and lets you embed a booking link on your website or emails.
📌 Our top picks:
Want to reach customers right on their phones? Consider adding an SMS marketing platform to your toolkit. Text message marketing can be incredibly effective because most people open texts almost immediately. For a small business, this channel is great for sending quick announcements, special offers, or appointment reminders.
A tool like Capacity’s AI SMS Automation allows you to manage text message campaigns to your customer list. You can also segment your audience, just like email, and send targeted texts.
The key with SMS is to use it thoughtfully (you don’t want to spam people’s phones) and make sure recipients have opted in. If your business lends itself to quick updates or on-the-go communication (think real estate alerts, appointment-based services, local retail), an SMS platform like Capacity can add a powerful, direct line of communication to your marketing mix.
Maintaining an active social media presence can eat up a lot of time if you’re posting manually every day. A social media scheduling tool helps you plan and automate posts across platforms, so you can batch your work and maintain consistency.
Using a social media scheduler means you can spend one afternoon planning your week (or month) of social content, and then let it run on autopilot.
📌 Our favorites:
How do you know if your marketing is working? For that, you’ll need to track analytics. Luckily, most marketing tools have them already built-in.
For example:
Spend time examining these metrics regularly to see what’s working. For instance, you might discover that a lot of visitors are coming from your Instagram profile—a sign that your social efforts are paying off. Or that hardly anyone is finding you via search, which might indicate you need to work on SEO.
When you really understand your audience, you can market to them far more effectively. SparkToro is an audience research tool which is designed to help you discover where your target audience hangs out online and what they pay attention to.
For example, with SparkToro you can find out what other websites your audience visits, which social media accounts they follow, and what podcasts or YouTube channels they enjoy. Why does this matter? Because it uncovers new marketing opportunities.
If SparkToro shows that a large portion of your audience listens to a particular industry podcast, you might try to get featured on that podcast or advertise on it. Or if it reveals that your customers often follow a certain influencer on X, you could engage with that influencer or run ads targeting their followers.
Essentially, audience research tools take the blindfold off and let you see where your potential customers are and what content resonates with them.
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👀 Need other tool recommendations for your small business? Check out our roundup of the best types of small business software. |
At this point, we’ve discussed strategy (the what and who) and tools (the how). Now let’s dive into marketing channels.
Marketing channels can be categorized in different ways, but for simplicity, we’ll break them down by format and medium: written vs. visual content, and online vs. offline marketing. A well-rounded small business marketing plan often uses a mix of these channels.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to use every channel available, but it’s good to understand how each works and the potential they have.
One of the most powerful marketing tools is the written content you put on your website. Depending on your type of business, this could be anything from short articles or blog posts that answer specific questions to longer guides or eBooks.
Let’s look at the most popular types of content you can use to carve out your niche and build authority.
Visual and multimedia channels add a dynamic element to your marketing. They appeal to people who prefer watching videos or viewing photos over reading articles. The biggest perk of this kind of content is that it's highly shareable on social media, which can help drive traffic to your company’s website.
Done right, online marketing can get your business in front of way more people, even if you’re just starting out. You might focus heavily on just two things, say SEO and Instagram, and still get great results.
The key is that online channels let you reach a large audience beyond your immediate neighborhood, and they often provide detailed metrics so you can measure what’s working.
This is a big umbrella, so let’s highlight some key channels relevant to small businesses:
While digital marketing gets a lot of buzz, offline marketing is far from dead—especially for purely local businesses or those targeting demographics that respond well to traditional media.
Offline marketing might feel old-school, but it’s incredibly powerful for small businesses, especially if you want to own your local market. We actually have an entire guide on how to promote your business locally—don’t miss it!
Here are some offline marketing avenues to consider:
I bet you’re a little bit overwhelmed now that we broke down all the different marketing channels for you. The absolutely good news is that you literally don’t have to lean on them all!
In fact, focusing on two to three channels can be a much more effective strategy. Here are some guiding principles to help you decide:
Think back to the target audience you defined. What does their day look like and where are they likely to encounter your marketing? If you’re targeting busy professionals, email and LinkedIn might be more effective than, say, TikTok.
Make a buyer persona and list where that person spends time, both online and offline. Prioritize channels that reach them directly.
Consider what channels you can execute well given your resources. Love writing but hate being on camera? Then blogging or social media might be a better focus than YouTube videos.
If you have zero budget, lean more on organic channels like SEO, website content, and social media content (which cost more time than money if you do it yourself).
A good rule of thumb: Do one thing really well instead of doing a lot of mediocre things.
It’s tempting to try “a bit of everything,” create five social accounts, start a blog, run ads, host events, all at once. But for most small businesses (especially if it’s just you), that’s a recipe for burnout. A better approach is to pick one, two, or at most three channels to really focus on at first.
Whatever the combination, give those channels a solid try for a few months. Don’t run ads for a day and then stop them the next. Put in consistent effort and track results.
Sometimes the best way to spark your marketing creativity is to look at specific ideas that have worked for others.
The first thing (and the most effective) is to add yourself to a local business directory by claiming your Google Business Profile listing. Also, get your business included in Yelp and other local directories. So whenever people are going to be looking for a business in your area, they can see you right at the top of Google.
For example, say you're a Seattle-based vegan bakery. Whenever someone does a Google Search for vegan bakeries, you’ll want to pop up in Google.
Also, when you create a local listing, it's a good practice to start collecting customer reviews. These do two things:
People love a good deal, so it’s always a smart idea to set up special promotions that attract new customers or encourage existing ones to buy more.
That’s exactly what Voodou, a hair salon in Liverpool, UK, does. They feature a special promotion for all new clients on their website. It’s just hard not to book yourself in when it’s 50% off!
Bundling your products or services into a package can also work well. Bundling often increases the average sale size and introduces customers to more of what you offer. If you’re a coach, you might want to check out this guide on creating coaching packages that land clients.
Sometimes, teaming up with other businesses can unlock new opportunities—a classic win-win scenario. Collaboration marketing allows you to tap into another business’s customer base while offering something of value to your own. Double the exposure, half the work.
In 2023, Big Dill Pickleball Co., a small Utah-based pickleball equipment brand, partnered with local boutiques to co-host pop-up events and cross-promote products.
They shared Instagram posts and reels showcasing pickleball gear alongside things like local artisanal goods and dried fruits, driving foot traffic to both businesses. The collab created a fun, community-driven vibe, perfect for TikTok and Instagram engagement.
Your happiest customers are your best marketers. When people love what you do, they’re usually happy to spread the word—you just have to make it easy. A simple referral program rewards your current customers for bringing in new ones, turning their good experience into a growth engine for your business.
Offer a small reward, discount, or freebie for every successful referral, and you’ll encourage more word-of-mouth from people who already trust and value your services.
Check out how N26, a digital bank based in Germany, ran its recent referral program through an email campaign.
You can have the best marketing in the world, but if people can’t book a meeting with you easily... It's game over. Add your scheduling link everywhere you can!
Take Christian M. Frank Fas, Esq., CEO of USADefend LLC, for example. He helps businesses and entrepreneurs navigate legal issues in tax, immigration, and other matters across the U.S. and Puerto Rico—and he makes it super easy for his clients to connect with him. There’s a booking button right on his website that takes visitors straight to his scheduling page.
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👉 You might also want to include your booking link to your social media accounts so people can reach you wherever they find you. Here’s a quick visual guide on how to put your booking link to your LinkedIn profile. |
Marketing your small business may feel like a big task—but you’ve gotta do it, yes or yes! You don’t need a huge budget or a marketing degree to get started. Focus on the basics and don’t be afraid to test and learn as you go.
And once your marketing efforts start working (they will!), you’ll want to be ready to book discovery calls with leads or have a simple way for people to schedule appointments for your services. That’s where a tool like YouCanBookMe can come in handy.