Unless you’re a marketing consultant, it isn’t second nature to know how to market a small business. You’re focused on your craft and passion, and marketing can feel like an entirely additional job that you didn’t sign up for.

To make it even worse, between the endless number of social channels, the endless content you can create for your website, and the different ways you can invest in marketing, there’s enough to make your head spin. 

Don’t freak out just yet. We’re here to break it down for you so marketing your business becomes simple. So let’s set aside all of the different channels and tactics for a moment and go over some of the core principles we recommend to learn how to market a small business.

In this article, we’re talking about:

• Why we need to start with strategy (over tactics)
• What you should focus on when learning how to market a small business
• How to track what’s working as you market your small business
• Making it simple to market your small business

Here’s a quick overview of how we approach marketing to get you started.

Start With a Strategy, Not Just Tactics 

First, at Enji, our approach to marketing is to always start with a strategy. If you don’t have a ton of experience in marketing, your first instinct is often to start thinking about tactics. That means things like, “I need to post once a day on Instagram,” or “I need to write a blog post about my business.”

Some of these tactics might be great ideas, but if you just start creating content and posting randomly, you won’t have any way of knowing if those ideas are successful. 

Instead, starting with a marketing strategy means you have a goal you want to reach—whether it’s booking more clients, retaining more clients, capturing more leads, or all of the above. Plus, your strategy makes it possible to measure all of your tactics, helping you understand what’s working, and ultimately, where to focus your (probably limited) time and money. 

This is exactly why we created our marketing strategy generator. Within ten minutes of starting your free trial, you’ll have a marketing strategy that shows you exactly how to market a small business (curated for you!). 

Consistency Beats Perfection 

Now, while we talk about how to market a small business, we have to admit something. If you’re not used to marketing yourself, it’ll be a little uncomfy at first. It can be hard to put yourself out there and see your work not get a ton of engagement at first. Plus, most of us aren’t great at talking to ourselves on video right off the bat.  But remember—consistency beats perfection. 

Not everything you post or publish is going to go viral or instantly generate traffic, and that’s normal. You won’t be an expert content creator on day one (or even day one hundred). 

Especially when you’re just starting, it’s better to market yourself consistently than it is to plan and wait to come up with the best idea or design the prettiest Instagram posts. 

In fact, for most small business owners, we recommend batch-creating your content so it’s not something you have to worry about every day or even every week. With our AI copywriter, we can do a lot of that work for you to help you create social media captions and blog posts. Even better—you can use Enji’s social media scheduler so your content calendar keeps publishing without you. 

Once your marketing is more consistent, it helps you increase your visibility online and gives you more data to understand what’s working. More on that a little later!

Be Realistic About Your Time 

Our founder Tayler often talks about something her dad used to hear at the dinner table: “Your eyes are bigger than your stomach!” 

While this is true for hungry kids, it’s also something we’re guilty of as business owners. We so easily forget that it’s our business, and we get to control our workload and time. And when it comes to figuring out how to market a small business? One of the most important things to do is to consider how much time you have. 

This ties in with our tip above, that we don’t need to be perfect. You really don’t need to be present on every social media platform or posting daily. In fact, taking too much on unrealistically will burn you out, and your marketing will probably end up being inconsistent. Hello feast or famine mode, right?

As you’re planning out your marketing calendar, be honest with yourself about how much you can accomplish. If that means an Instagram post per week, that’s ok! Most business owners only have 1-2 hours per week, and as long as you’re using that time well, you’re still making an impact on your business. 

Create Content That Works Harder for You 

When you’re figuring out how to market a small business, you probably feel pressured to come up with a bunch of amazing topics and new ideas. Don’t get us wrong—brainstorming and ideation can be one of the most fun parts of marketing. 

But, it can also be the most overwhelming. And, it’s also just unnecessary to constantly be thinking of new content ideas. While coming up with ideas to market your business can feel like you’re getting stuff done, the only marketing efforts you’ll see an ROI from are the ones that actually get posted.

Instead, work smarter by making the content you are creating go as far and wide as you can. Here are a few examples: 

• Turn a long-from blog post into an Instagram carousel or break it into more posts on each subtopic you mention
• Turn your blog posts into Pinterest pins, which you can also post on Instagram stories
• Combine your blog posts into downloadable guides to offer more in-depth topic coverage

Track What’s Working (and Ditch What’s Not) 

One of the biggest parts of learning how to market a small business is figuring out what’s working and what isn’t. 

Remember when we started by talking about your marketing strategy? That strategy should include the goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) that you can measure. That’s as simple as taking a goal like “Booking more clients this year,” and writing down the number of clients you booked last year. From there, your KPI could be “Increasing new clients by 20%,” or whatever number is realistic for your business and marketing efforts.

Don’t worry if you’re not a numbers person. This is where it’s helpful to have some type of visual dashboard like Enji’s KPI tracker. With a dashboard, you can sync a lot of the marketing channels you use to easily stay on top of your progress without a ton of manual work or calculations (because who even has time for that!). 

Simplify Where Possible 

When it comes to learning how to market a small business—this is a big one. Small business owners tend to make things too damn complicated, especially with marketing. We load ourselves up with tasks and end up working way too many hours just to keep up with the work we gave ourselves!

We’re here to tell you that it’s okay to slow down. In fact, simplifying your marketing strategy will be more successful than trying to do everything and be everywhere. Focus on 2-3 platforms where your audience probably hangs out, and build your marketing plan from there. 

Like we mentioned before, being unrealistic with your time will only burn you out in the long run. ‍

Marketing is a Long Game

Before we let you go, it’s worth talking about when it comes to how to market a small business, we need to remember that marketing is a long game. We are all so guilty of needing instant gratification. After all, nowadays we’re used to our food and packages coming within minutes after we order them online. But when it comes to marketing, it’s important to set that need aside. 

Our advice? Be patient! You won’t typically see immediate results with your marketing unless you happen to go viral on social media (and don’t cross your fingers for that!). With most marketing channels, you won’t see results for about a quarter—but in the grand scheme of things, that’s pretty quick!

At that point, the cycle continues—you can review your KPIs, tweak your strategy, batch-create your content, and monitor again in a few months. Once you make a routine out of your work, it becomes even easier and second nature. 

Organize All Your Marketing Efforts With Enji

Figuring out how to market a small business is typically a full-time job, which none of us have time for! That’s why we built Enji as an all-in-one marketing solution specifically designed for small business owners. 

With one platform, you’ll finally have all the tools you need to know how to market your business, stay consistent, and measure your results. Start your free trial here (and see what all the fuss is about!).