Marketing has never been easier for a small business. People try hard to reach the right audience no matter what strategies they use.

This article focuses on proven strategies that work. We have included the strategies that drive traffic to your e-commerce store and thereby increase your business revenue. You can start focusing on these strategies and start seeing good results faster.

What are the most effective marketing strategies for small businesses?

• SMS marketing

• SEO

• Email marketing

• Influencer marketing

• Google Ads

• Social media marketing

• Content marketing

• Video marketing

SMS marketing

SMS marketing is a way to reach customers and drive sales. According to a survey, 90% of texts are opened and read when compared to 20%–30% of emails.

It takes very little time to set up a campaign and is also an affordable way to communicate with customers.

With a single click, SMS can be sent in bulk to a huge number of people, and there are several campaigns including flash sales, welcome series, etc.

A thoughtful, well-customized SMS marketing plan will build brand awareness, and drive traffic and sales. Start by choosing a better service provider and start building your subscriber base.

SEO

Google drives the most stores' online traffic when compared to other search engines. Ranking high in search engines will bring more organic traffic. According to a survey, an online business needs to expect 35% of the total traffic and 33% of revenue to come from SERP. It’s cheaper to attract an audience through organic search than through paid advertising, which is expensive.

Optimizing the online store found to be a difficult task unless you involve marketing analytics to it. The below guidelines help to further optimise the search engines and thereby help you to increase visibility and grow your online sales.

Email marketing

Email marketing is the act of sending promotional or marketing messages to your audience in huge quantities. It’s mainly used to generate leads or sales, and it may contain advertising.

In email marketing, we can create automated campaigns that help connect with customers. 

Some of the email campaigns are:

• Transactional emails are sent during purchasing actions or at the time of checkout. These emails are important for sending key shipping and order information to customers.

• Promotional emails are designed to promote new products or deals, and also build awareness. For example, you could create a Black Friday Sale to send limited-time discounts during the shopping holiday.

• Lifecycle emails, or "triggered" emails, are sent based on the shopper's actions taken. For example, a cart abandonment email is sent only after a customer leaves a product behind. 

Building an email list and sending compelling messages helps retain customers and engage them. If your business hasn’t started email marketing yet, now is the time to do so. Fortunately, it's simple to sign up for a free email service, begin building your email list, and drive revenue for your company. 

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is one of the best ways to promote your brand and increase visibility and build brand awareness. This involves partnering with creators who help you promote your brand through their channels. 

Influencers generate higher user engagement than branded content. The businesses that are involved in influencer marketing earn $18 for every dollar spent. The top 5 influencer marketing channels are Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, blogs, and Twitter.

Businesses will have endless opportunities in influencer marketing. Finding an influencer may appear time-consuming, but there are numerous influencer marketing services that may assist you in finding creators, launching your campaign, and tracking KPIs.

Google Ads

Many people just stick to social media ads on Facebook or Instagram because it's easy to use and set up ads but miss out on the most important details in finding customers on the largest search engines, i.e., Google and Youtube.

You can set a budget as low as $5 and pay only when someone clicks on your ad. Targeting specific audiences based on behaviour, interests, and other purchase actions.

Google Ads have attractive ad types called "search and display ads" to reach out to your customers. Setting up Google ads is a bit tricky, but if you’re willing to reach a massive target market, then it’s definitely recommended. You can also run retargeting campaigns to drive more traffic and sales.

Social media marketing

Small businesses' ideal marketing technique involves social media marketing. It involves using social media channels to promote and sell your products and services. In social media marketing, there are both paid and organic ways to increase your sales, traffic, and revenue.

The most popular social media channels include Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Reddit. But there are some lesser known social media sites where businesses should focus. The right social media channel for your brand depends on your products, audience demographics, interests, behaviour and overall marketing goals.

Effective social media marketing must include curating content, scheduling posts, and automation. But bringing out the best in social media marketing is essential; it's about understanding, engaging, and reacting to your audience in order to retain them for a longer time.

Content marketing

Many businesses adopt all the latest marketing strategies but miss out on the most important or very essential strategy, i.e., content marketing. Content is the main opportunity for online businesses.

Brands that stand out focus on finding new ways to approach content and engage with their audience.

Some of the content types a brand can create include: blogs, webinars, newsletters, videos, infographics, white papers, giveaways, and contests.

Your content type mainly depends on who your audience is and which channels they are active on, and it’s clearly a profitable marketing strategy to use in your business.

Video marketing

People enjoy video content, whether it’s a movie, or a YouTube video, or an instagram reel. According to research from Wyzowl, 92% of businesses add video content as the main overall marketing strategy to engage with their target audience.

In video marketing, you’ll want to know what types of videos are created. 

The top video trends include explainer videos, presentation videos, sales videos, and video ad trends like short-form videos like reels and live streaming. 

Ecommerce brands take advantage of this by selling products directly through the video. Brands also use videos by surfacing user-generated product reviews like product video reviews from YouTube.

On average, 15% of shoppers watch videos on product pages for an average of 2.5 minutes per shopper. Video helps track ROI and conversion rate on each sale. It helps your brand to get ahead of your competitors.