1) A Small Business Website
Everyone running a small business in 2024 needs a website. It doesn’t matter if you are scaling a company, or are a serviced-based entrepreneur, creative freelancer, course creator, or musician. A freelancer website or small business website is critical.
Your small business website can be a simple place to provide more information on you and your business. Or, it can be an e-commerce hub for physical or digital goods. If someone is interested in what you have to offer, the first place they are going to look is your website. A website can provide them with the information to get in touch with you, and/or a place to buy your products. The good news is it is relatively easy to get something launched in 2024!
If you don’t have a website, you can DIY-it with a template. These are professionally designed websites that allow you to plug-in your content and launch in a matter of hours.
If you already have a website, you’ll want to make sure it checks the following boxes:
Mobile friendly—this is a separate mobile design (if you must pinch your fingers on a mobile device, it is not mobile friendly)
Fast loading time and site speed—no one will wait around for a page to load, including Google!
Fresh content on a regular basis—if you are on WordPress or a platform that is too complicated to update your website, it’s time to switch to Squarespace. Google prioritizes fresh content, and so does your audience!
You can also look for web designers for small business. Squarespace is the best website creator for small business. Reach out to me if you’d like to learn more about my website design services!
2) Email Marketing
Email marketing is not dead yet! While most of us receive an unbelievable number of emails every day, it is still the best way to reach your target audience directly.
If someone has signed up for your email list, they are already interested in what you have to offer. This provides an opportunity to not only reach them in their inbox (where they are spending a ton of time) but target their specific interests with segments. These features make email marketing an incredibly efficient and effective marketing tool.
Be sure to use a proper email marketing platform such as Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Flodesk, etc. Email marketing platforms ensure your emails are legal! You are required to include a physical address, a way for people to unsubscribe, to disclose affiliate links, and to be transparent with your subject lines. If you aren’t using an email platform, your emails may not be legal. Plus, email platforms provide analytics, automation features, and the ability to segment to your audience based on their interests.
If you are just sending a monthly newsletter, I recommend the Squarespace email marketing platform. If you need something more powerful for automations, sequences, and more, I recommend ConvertKit for creators (this is what I use!). You can learn more and compare the two platforms in this article.
3) Short and Long-Term Marketing Strategies
You thought I was going to say “social media”, didn’t you? While social media marketing can be a critical piece of your marketing plan, it is one of many options.
Many small businesses, freelance creatives, and service-based entrepreneurs, go straight to social media as a primary marketing platform. However, social media is often a “long game”. It can be lucrative, but if you don’t already have a very large audience, it can take a while to see results.
To be successful in your small business marketing, you need both short-term and long-term strategies.
Short-Term Strategies
Short-term strategies are marketing initiatives that will help you increase your revenue immediately. For service providers this might be networking for 1-1 work, or for creators, this might look like a pop-up sale or quarterly digital product launch.
Short-term strategies are geared towards the percentage of your audience who are ready to buy right now. They know they need your product/service, and they are familiar with you (or trust the referral partner pitching on behalf of your business).
Long-Term Strategies
Long-term strategies are marketing initiates that take some time to build. These are considered “long-haul” strategies, but they have a big payoff in the future. Once they are going, they can bring you passive income and/or ongoing referrals.
Long-term strategies might be SEO (search engine optimization), social media marketing, email marketing, podcasts, referral networking, etc.
Are you surprised social media, SEO, and email are on the long-term list? One of the biggest mistakes I see is that business owners spend a tremendous amount of time on social media marketing and email marketing expecting instant results.
Over time, as you build trust with your audience, you will see results. However, most people engaging with you on these platforms are “browsers”. This means they may or may not be ready to buy, so it takes some time for them to get to know you (and my even take time for them to understand that they need your services or products).
