Six easy (and free) steps for business owners who feel stuck with their marketing

If you're a business owner feeling a bit stuck with your marketing, this post is for you

In my last blog post, I wrote about how the new year is a great time to review your business's marketing and objectives - for both the year ahead, and the year prior.

It's a time of optimism of course, but for business owners it can be a time of frustration too. 

Why? Because the marketing 'mix' is a complex beast and a demanding one too. On any given day, you might be thinking of what to post on your social media accounts, adding a new service or product to your website, preparing an email to send to your subscribers, trying to figure out why your Facebook advertising isn't bringing in leads, or designing an advert for a magazine.

And if you're a business owner, and you're trying to do all of that - whilst running your business - I can certainly empathise. It's a lot.

Sometimes there just isn't enough time in the day to do it all, and it's admirable that business owners are giving it a go. But what I've just described is a day in the life of a full-time marketing manager.

What might help is to take a minute to stop, step back and approach your marketing in a more measured and strategic way (of course, it also helps every business owner - without exception - to have a dedicated expert handling their marketing). 

But where do you start? 

Below you'll find six easy (and free) steps for small business owners who want to approach their marketing in a more strategic way.

The six-step marketing plan for business owners:

1. Sort your website content so that the important stuff is easy to find

2. Refresh your Google Business listing

3. Spend 15 minutes planning social media

4. Write some expert content that you already know

5. Set a marketing budget

6. Revisit your email marketing

Sort your website content so that the important stuff is easy to find

Your website is the most important marketing tool at your disposal. It's where your potential customers will go after they've seen an advert, a social media post, or heard about you through word of mouth. Depending on what your business does, they will be looking for key bits of information, like what services (or products) you offer, what time you're open, where you are, and crucially, how much things cost.

So when your users 'land' on your homepage, they need a decent user experience. That just means that they need to be able to find what they're looking for nice and easily. Key content should be easy to find, and not buried in a link at the bottom of a page.

The first step then, is to take a look at your website by opening up the homepage, and putting yourself in your users' shoes. Imagine what they will be looking for, and then ask yourself how easy it is to find. 

Businesses often want to shout about what they're doing - but really it's all about the user, and their needs and problems. Think of the number of times you've visited a website and spent ages clicking around, not being able to find what you need...

So perhaps you don't need that huge banner at the top of your homepage, or links to your blog - if it means the user needs to scroll all the way down the page to find out what times you're open.

Consider rearranging your content so that what's important to your customers is at the forefront when they arrive at your website.

Large companies will often conduct quite expensive UX ('user experience') testing to help them figure this out by giving a large sample of people various tasks to complete on the website, but for us smaller fish, you'll have a decent understanding of your customers' needs and can use that knowledge to assess your homepage and navigation.

If you use a website provider like Wix, Squarespace or Wordpress, you should be able to just drag and drop to move items around the homepage; and ensure that navigation items are easy to find and understand. If you use something more sophisticated, you might need to ask your website developer.

Whether you're a butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker, your Google Business listing should be up to date, and active.

Refresh your Google Business listing

If you have a physical location, or offer services, then without doubt you need a Google Business listing. If you don't have one, then it's easy to set one up.

These listings are incredibly important for potential customers to find you on Google Maps, so whether you are a conservatory roofing business, a cake shop, an aesthetics practitioner or dog walker, you must have one! (here's how to set up a Google Business listing.)

If you already have a Google Business profile, it's important that you check it's all up to date and looking nice for all the potential customers who might look at it. Here are some of the things to pay attention to:

• Reviews: have you had any reviews lately? If the last review you had is more than a month old, could you send out a link to recent customers with a friendly request to leave you one if they liked your service? Reviews foster trust, and the more you have, the better. Businesses without a review from the last month might make people wonder if you are still trading.

• Photos: it's a great idea to keep these fresh - so are there any you can upload from recent clients or jobs? Or if you're a product-based business, can you upload one of a new product or display? Like the reviews, new photos let the customer know that you're still in business and care about what you do.

• Updates: like reviews and photos, posting an update shows that you are still active, and present. Businesses who haven't posted for a while (upwards of 1 month) are also missing a trick, as updates can link to articles on your website and bring organic search traffic. Just spending five minutes brainstorming ideas of what you could post might give you inspiration for the next month. They don't have to be super long - just show the customer that you are active, and have things going on!

• Products & Services: check that your services are listed in the correct category, and that your products are up to date. If you're a cafe or restaurant, do you have an up to date menu online, with clear prices? Customers who are considering making a booking will be taking this into account, so if your menu is four years old, it affects their trust in your business.

• Other details: double check your phone number, email address, website address and physical address, to make sure your customers can reach you. Make sure that your logo is the correct one, rather than a photo.

Leaving your social media as an afterthought, or trying to tackle it at the end of each long day, is a recipe for disillusionment - spending 15 minutes planning it at the start of each week will work wonders.

Spend 15 minutes planning social media

I'd be surprised if anyone running social media accounts for their business doesn't sit down every day with a deflated sigh when they remember they should be posting to Instagram. It's the chore that never ends, and you might be considerably lacking in inspiration.

Posting on social media for your business can be quick and easy - with the right planning. 

Allocate 15 minutes at the start of each week, before you launch yourself into everything else, to just take a moment and write down a few ideas for posts for the week ahead. 

Ideas for social posts could include:

• A photo (or video) of a new product

• A link to a blog post on your website

• A part of 'your story' - your journey as a business, and as a business owner

• A short profile of one of your staff

• A shout out to a customer - what about sharing a Google review?

• A dog that has visited your business (these are always winners)

Once you spend a few minutes looking at your blank piece of paper, you will be surprised how many ideas start coming through. If you're really stuck, try putting your request into ChatGPT or Gemini as a starting point.

Write them down, and then write one or two lines of text to go with them. They don't have to be super long - short and sweet is good. If you are primarily posting on Meta - Facebook and Instagram - then you can use the native Meta Business Manager content planner tool to schedule posts. Aim for once every couple of days to keep your account active.

One cool little tool I use often is a link in bio account, like Link Tree. This acts as a mini landing page where you can direct people to any website URL, Youtube video, product or other social account or booking link. It's free to set up and has some nice themes to choose from. A big advantage of this for Instagram accounts is that you can't add clickable links to your posts, so you can ask followers to click the link in your bio.

Keep this short period of planning and writing in your diary each week and it will really take the stress off having to post on social media - trust me!

You might not realise it, but if you run a business, you're an expert in what you do - and people will want you to solve their problems. One way you can do this is through writing blog content.

Write some expert content that you already know

I'm a huge proponent of writing blog content for websites. Google loves blogs, and you'll often see small business's blogs gaining better search rankings than bigger companies - that's because Google knows that individual experts can have better content authority than a junior content editor at a massive company using ChatGPT to do their research.

It's a little like your social media: planning is really important. So, sit down for 15 minutes and think up some good titles for blogs. Remember, you're the expert here: what do you know that might help customers solve a problem? It doesn't have to be researched for Search Engine Optimisation keywords (although if you know about this, kudos to you) - your blogs just need to help people.

You'll be surprised when you actually carve out some thinking time, how many things you could share, that you're an expert in.

If you're not the world's best writer, don't worry. One copywriting trick I often use to make blogs or interviews sound natural is to record people's answers, and then simply transcribe them, giving them a gentle proofing before I build them on a website. To do this yourself, come up with your topic (e.g. 'Jobs to do to get your conservatory ready for winter') and then use the voice note recorder on your phone to talk about these. 

If you have Microsoft Word, you can simply use the 'dictate' button in the ribbon menu at the top to live transcribe, or you can upload an audio file from your phone or computer.

Once you've edited your document, get it built as a blog on your website, with a few images to make it readable. Bonus tip: submit the new page URL to Google Search Console to speed up organic traffic results to the new page.

Try and aim for one blog every week or two, if you can - this helps keep your content fresh, and shows visitors that you care about what you do.

Without having a clear idea of your marketing budget, you might be feeling like this person.

Set a marketing budget

I mentioned that these tips were all free - and that includes setting your marketing budget. If money is tight, it's even more important to know what you can spend, and what the priorities are.

Do you really know what you have every month to invest in marketing your business? If not, then I can imagine it might cause unnecessary stress - and you'll also not really know what you can, or should, spend on advertising.

If you can allocate £250 per month for marketing, then there is actually a huge amount that you can do for that. You'll know then that you can set up a Google ad campaign with a £3 daily spend; pay your £13.80 monthly Wix hosting bill, design and print 250 flyers on Canva, and have a few quid left over for 500 new business cards, just as an example.

Ultimately if you're planning to do some advertising, then it's also a case of 'you have to spend money to make money.' Whilst there is such a lot of marketing that can be done for free (social media, writing a blog, your Google Business updates for example), sometimes you do need to invest in a Meta lead generation campaign with a decent budget in order to get the leads you need - or some design work and print ads in local magazines for example.

Bonus tip: don't just boost a Facebook post you've already done: a specialist marketer can help set up a targeted campaign which brings your cost per lead down and measures conversions.

Keep your customers warm and they'll keep coming back for more.

Revisit your email marketing

Email marketing is a powerful tool in any marketer - or business owner's - arsenal. If you're already capturing visitors' email addresses, that's fantastic. If you're not, you might be wondering where to start:  email marketing can seem like it comes with a certain amount of time demands that you might feel you don't have at your disposal.

That being said, in just a matter of minutes, a simple pop-up form on your website can be collecting email addresses from potential customers; and you can also add existing customers into your email marketing database (with their GDPR-compliant consent of course).

But why is it such a great tool? 

Because it allows you to develop a relationship with both potential and existing customer, through sending them blog updates, offers and other content (the same Google Business and website content that I mentioned earlier). It's often called a 'keep warm' tool for that reason.

In the case of an aesthetics artist client of mine, who regularly has cancellation spots to fill at short notice, setting up a waiting list was almost revolutionary. Instead of relying on social media to fill last minute slots, we set up a subscriber form, and then simply email everybody when there is a slot to fill - with immediate results. There is a clear value exchange for the customer in signing up - that's what makes this work so well.

What value can you be offering to people who sign up to your list? (or, what problems can you solve for them?)

For those clients who you've done a small job for in the past, making sure that they are on your email marketing list and sending them regular content and offers can result in further conversions for bigger pieces of work.

If you're a flooring company for example, a customer may have got you in to replace some carpet on the stairs; but keeping them warm with email marketing means that the next time they want to do any more renovations, you'll most likely be the first company they'll think of.

Setting up your pop-up form is relatively easy, and you can use a free tool like Mailchimp, Mailerlite or similar to send your emails. There are usually loads of free templates to get you started, and they're easy to alter using drag and drop (don't worry if the free version includes their branding at the bottom - very few people make it to the end of the email and probably wouldn't care if they saw the Mailchimp logo anyway).

Bear in mind though that your email template doesn't need to be snazzy - it just needs to be error-free, clean, simple and mobile-responsive.

I may not agree with their deodorant scents (if that's who this company is), but Lynx's motto is spot on - especially for marketing your small business.

And the most important part of your marketing is...

All of these things are free, and relatively simple, to do - if you're a business owner who does their own marketing. And mostly, it's just a case of planning: ringfencing some of your precious time to dedicate to thinking up ideas, and then quickly writing them up. It's when there's not enough planning time that marketing gets out of control, or ends up out of focus.

The question is: can you commit to some (or all) of these each week, and make that consistent? When it comes to marketing your small business, planning is key - but consistency is game, set and match.

Need a little help with your marketing? Send me a message, and let's see where I can bring value to your business.