Small businesses, along with art resources like the bibliography of living artists, often have the worst luck with marketing. As a startup, you probably don’t have piles of money to waste. If you make a mistake, it tends to cost you.
Still, there’s something to admire in how well small businesses perform against the odds. The owner of a smaller company has a certain tenacity, built by working with limited resources and against stiff competition.
As a website owner, you need to learn the tricks and hints before you make mistakes. You have to know how to get the most out of what you’ve got. With that in mind, here are a few tips a small business should know. Have a look and see what you can do to succeed.
Strengthen your online presence
One of the first things you can do is improve your online presence. Most small businesses already have one or two social media accounts, usually the big ones like Facebook and Twitter. But to build a strong brand online, you should use as many platforms as possible. That means considering things like Snapchat and Instagram. It also means making sure your website is the best it can be. Use keywords, and maybe run a blog. What matters is that your online presence is strong.
So use as many platforms as you can. Consider Snapchat and Instagram. Make sure your website is the best it can be. Use keywords, maybe even a blog. A strong online presence is what counts.
Watch competitors
You’ll probably have competition if, say, you’re a painter or a photographer. It’s highly doubtful that your good or service is entirely unique. But that isn’t always a bad thing.
The advantage of having competitors is that they’ll test marketing methods for you. You can watch their attempts to sell similar products.
They’ll show you what works and what doesn’t. You’ll see what people respond to and what they ignore. Best of all, they don’t even know they’re helping you. Keep an eye on the competition. Know what is trending and what isn’t. This will help you market in the most efficient way possible.
Invest in email marketing
Another powerful marketing tool is email. You may not realize it, but email campaigns help IF you don’t abuse them. If you have permission from your customers (people you had contracts with, art galleries, museums), you can put this technique to work.
You start by asking people to join an email list. Then you send them a variety of emails. These could be promotions or exclusive offers. They could be links to a new blog. Whatever you put into the email, you’re marketing yourself.
People are becoming aware of who you are and what you do. That matters for any small business. It’s all about making yourself known in whatever way you can.
Web directories
As a small business, web directories are your friends. They’re virtual places where you can register your business. These registered businesses all go onto a big list.
People can then search for a commodity or service and find you. There’s a lot of directories out there, so there’s plenty of potential. One big note here. As an art lover or an artist, painter, photographer and so on, you probably don’t know that Google counts only listings from:
- directories that are both Google compliant (no duplicate content, a clean and easy to navigate website, no missing pages, no black hat tricks, and real value for their visitors)
- directories with high editorial discretion (in short, before you list your artist profile page, or a page pointing towards your artworks, take a few minutes and check whether the titles already included read as promotional. Stay away from directories that allow listings with words like “Best Photographer” and the like)
Here are a few directories to consider:
Curlie.org (former DMOZ). It’s free, run by volunteers, and in my opinion Curlie is the best web directory that has ever existed. You can suggest your site or become an editor if a topic interests you.
“When the category you are browsing is accepting applications for new editors, the icon [there is a small black icon] will appear next to it. If you are knowledgeable about the topic and interested in editing, click the icon and fill out the form.
If accepted, you will have access to a comprehensive set of tools that make it easy to add, delete, and update links. After gaining experience, you may apply for additional, and possibly broader, categories.
With just a few minutes of your time, you can help make the Web a better place, and be recognized as an expert on your chosen topic. For more information on becoming an editor, go here.” (source https://curlie.org/docs/en/about.html)
Jasmine Directory. It has an art section, and if you ask nicely they’ll publish your website for free. It worked for me. Just contact them and ask if they could review your site at no cost. This directory was ranked in a Top 10 list for a couple of years, based on several thorough reviews.
They manually add about 90% of the resources, though commercial businesses are allowed too.
Best of the Web. An old and respected web directory founded in the 90s. You can add your artist’s official page as well as your Facebook fan page, Twitter account, and more.
These three directories apply very high editorial discretion (Curlie.org being the best at it, no doubt) and they’re all Google compliant. Because of those two criteria, these directories help with Google’s SEO (local search results and NAP).
This connects with the online presence idea we talked about earlier.
Be bold
Sometimes it’s not enough to play it safe and by the book. As a small business, you sometimes have to do more.
You have to push past the competition and come up with something new.
There are a lot of smaller businesses out here. They all want to go big. They all want to make it. So if you’re going to outdo them, you have to go big as well. You have to find what makes your business special. What would make customers pick you over a competitor? How can you make sure you’re a cut above everyone else?
These are all worth thinking about. They’ll determine how well you do and how far you go. So it’s worth knowing what you have that will help you succeed. It might be drive. It might be a crazy new idea. Whatever it is, use it.
So those are a few tips for smaller businesses. If you want to market well, listen to them. Above all, make sure you look good online. We live in a very image focused society, so it makes sense to take advantage of that.
You should strive to be the best. We all know how hard it is for an artist to be known.
Strive to look like a company that can be trusted. Why shouldn’t you be someone people buy from? It comes down to making yourself known. Make sure you’re noticed. Make sure you’re known.
