As a small business owner, you’re probably really great at your craft. You’re a baker who makes amazing cinnamon rolls. Or you’re a designer who can knock out an ebook without breaking a sweat. Or you’re an influencer who slays at social media.

But if you’re like most small business owners, when it comes to running and growing your business, you’re probably making things up as you go along.

That’s pretty common.

It’s called the E-Myth Principle: “the mistaken belief that most businesses are started by people with tangible business skills, when in fact most are started by ‘technicians’ who know nothing about running a business.”

But it’s also a waste of time waiting until you “know everything” about running a business or earn some fancy business degree. 

Sometimes, you’ve got to learn as you go. There’s nothing wrong with that.

To help you improve your marketing (arguably one of the most important elements of building a successful small business), we’ve compiled a list of top marketing tips from pro-level marketers below.

These quick pieces of advice from experts (who are as good at marketing as you are at baking, or designing, or Instagramming) have graciously offered their top tips for succeeding at small business marketing this year.

Let’s see what they have to say:

Chelsea Baldwin: “Have a Solid Attention-Getting Message”

Chelsea Baldwin is a powerhouse marketing copywriter and entrepreneur. Her business Copy Power helps businesses develop powerful sales-driven copywriting.

“My #1 tip is to make sure you have a solid, attention-getting message. 

“This doesn’t mean being click-bait-y, but you do HAVE to stand out online to even have a sliver of hope that someone will pay attention to you. People see thousands of messages online each day, but remember less than 20.

When you have solid copy in your marketing and on your website that gets and keeps attention, your chances of being remembered go up significantly, and you can more effectively build your base of future clients.”

Chelsea Baldwin

Ryan Robinson: “Invest in actually talking to real customers”

Ryan Robinson is a professional marketer, blogger, podcaster, and (recovering) side project addict that teaches 500,000 monthly readers how to start a blog and grow a profitable side business at ryrob.com.

“One of the most underrated ways to garner insights about who your target customers are (and thus strengthen your ability to effectively market to them), is meeting up with your customers—or would be customers who are on your email list, reading your blog or responding to social media ads. 

“Whether meeting up in-person, over the phone or via Zoom, getting out of the office and meeting real customers, is a powerful way to get to know your audience on a much deeper level than usual. 

You can find your target customers in places like conventions, seminars, local hobby groups, meetups and anywhere else enthusiasts for your industry get together. 

“Strike up conversations, network and find out what really motivates them. Then, you can get back to the office and start translating your insights into actionable marketing campaigns that meet their needs on a more intimate level—and you’ll be that much more successful in showing your audience that you really understand them.”

Ryan Robinson

Preston Lee: “It’s not enough to make content anymore—you have to be great at it.”

Preston Lee has been a marketer all his life (from the first time he won an advertising contest in 3rd grade) and has built several successful businesses. Now, he and his team help freelancers get more clients by becoming better marketers and building their businesses the right way.

“Ten years ago (maybe even more) everyone was talking about content. ‘You have to create content.’ or ‘You should have a blog.’

Well, in today’s marketing landscape, it’s not enough to just make content anymore. Your content has to be the absolute best in order to make a meaningful impact on your business.

Sure, it’ll always be easier to write a half-hearted blog post or phone in the copy for your Facebook ad, or post that ‘just okay’ picture to your Instagram account because you feel like you have to.

Instead, take the road less traveled and make every single piece of content you publish WORTH publishing. The time and energy you invest will come back to you in spades in the form of attention and sales. 

Soon you’ll be spinning your wheel less and crushing your sales goals more often.”

Preston Lee

Clay Mosley: “Double down on marketing all together”

Clay Mosley is a marketing expert and the founder of Dripify, The #1 online marketing training platform for service-based entrepreneurs. Clay and his team help entrepreneurs take control of their marketing and get real results. Everything they teach is 100% proven with positive ROI results.

“My #1 tip for 2021 is to double down on marketing altogether. That means effort and budget. 

I believe that a lot of businesses will still be living in fear [following Covid] and will cut budgets, including their marketing budget. This is an opportunity for others to double down. 

I think consumer spending is going to substantially increase to play “catch up” as a result of reduced spending during Covid.”

Clay Mosley

Bobby Macey: “Video is a must for 2021”

Bobby Macey is a social media expert and the founder of Macey Media, a content marketing agency creating impactful content at scale for their clients.

“If you aren’t taking video seriously, you ought to. According to Social Media Week, viewers claim they retain 95% of a message when obtained via video. 

Start with simple opportunities like explainer videos or FAQs and turn them into one or multiple videos. Video will help you connect with your customers on an entirely new level. 

Even if you don’t want to be in front of the camera, there are myriad ways to still tell your story, showcase your product, or provide value about your services via video. 

Oh, and don’t tell me it’s too expensive, we live in a world where Fiverr and Canva can help you create videos for next to nothing… or you can work with a company like mine that specializes in brand storytelling. 

The options are endless, but the principle remains — you need video in 2021!”

Bobby Macey

Morgan Nield: “Keep it Simple!”

Morgan Nield is a six-figure Etsy seller turned marketing and business coach who helps her clients turn their part-time hustle into a full-time dream (WITHOUT the full-time hours).

“Keeping it simple is the fastest way to grow your business (and, likewise, your revenue!). 

Instead of trying to do #allthethings #allatonce, become known for that ONE thing that you sell to that ONE type of customer on that ONE marketing channel– and build your entire business around that simple business model. 

Perfect that ONE product. Connect with that ONE customer type. Master that ONE marketing platform. 

Stay laser-focused on keeping things simple and your sales will flourish. Add too much, too soon to your business and you’ll hit the burnout fan before you make that first sale (and confuse your customers along the way). 

Diversifying your business before you’re ready is THE most detrimental (+ costly!) business decision you can make– so start simple and stay focused in those early days and beyond– your business (and your bank account!) will thank you.”

Morgan Nield

Eduard Klein: “Don’t get overwhelmed by the number of marketing tools”

Eduard Klein is a certified Digital Growth Marketer and Entrepreneur with a global mindset, who spends his time blogging and driving traffic for his businesses and his clients.

“Don’t get overwhelmed by the number of marketing tools and channels. You need to focus and concentrate on the channels that work for you. 

Learn from startup growth hackers that built million-dollar companies out of small budgets. Do rapid experimentation with a small budget and test incrementally if there’s demand for your product or service. This is how you identify the most efficient way of growing your business without overspending”

-Eduard Klein

Vikas Kalwani: Perform & Track Experiments

Vikas Kalwani is a marketing consultant at the VC fund, 500 Startups and manages partnerships at uSERP where he and his team help their clients scale organic traffic through SEO & digital PR.

“As a small business, your most valuable resource is time and money. Spend your resources wisely on activities that generate results. 

To identify these activities, perform experiments. Note that the result of the experiment should be measurable, and should have one variable parameter to further optimize the result.”

Vikas Kalwani

Erkki Muuga: Experiment with Webinars

Erkki is a professional marketer and founder of WebinarSoftware where he helps entrepreneurs generate sales by tapping into the power of webinars.

“With so much noise going on nowadays, it’s harder than ever to stand out from the sea of blogs, social media posts and apps. Attention is becoming such a fleeting and scarce resource, that companies and brands are bending over backwards and paying large sums to get just a slice of user attention. 

One proven way to engage your visitors, prospects and users is by hosting webinars and offering upfront value. Hosting an industry-specific webinar attracts professionals from the same industry. They are most probably facing the same type of problem that your webinar is about. Hence, they come to you with a problem at mind already.

If you can prove yourself as an authority during a webinar session, and you can establish a trustworthy connection with your live audience, it becomes a lot easier to suggest a solution. 

That solution can be your service, software or course. Engage with your visitors and users, offer upfront value and naturally suggest your solution, without appearing pushy.”

-Erkki Muuga

Alicja Olko: Leverage Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Alicja Olko works on the marketing team for ReferralCandy where she specializes in partnerships, link-building, on-page and off-page SEO and content marketing.

“Your existing clients are your biggest marketing asset. They can market your product, spreading a good word about it, advertising it basically for free. 

It’s called the power of word-of-mouth marketing. Personal recommendations are one of the strongest forces driving sales for online businesses, especially considering the speed with which they can be shared via social media.”

-Alicja Olko

Cya Nam: “Incorporate Influencer marketing”

Cya Nam works on the marketing team at SocialPros, where they help you get more Instagram followers and drive organic engagement and traffic on your Instagram account. 

“Make sure to incorporate Influencer Marketing into your digital marketing strategy. Working with influencers and using them to market your services and products is the most organic and effective method of generating traffic, leads, and sales.”

-Cya Nam

Next: Take action!

Of course, it’s not enough to simply read this advice from these marketing veterans. You have to put it into practice. 

So start with something simple. One gem of an idea you’ve had as you’ve reviewed this list. And start small to test it out. Keep experimenting, tracking, learning and improving.

Over time, you’ll become a better marketer, build your customer base, and grow your sales!

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For many small business owners, marketing can feel overwhelming. You’re so busy delivering for your customers and clients or working with your employees that adding “marketing” as a regular task feels overwhelming. 

That may be why some studies report almost “half of small businesses spend less than two hours per week on marketing efforts.”

There’s just never enough time in the day when you’re running your own small business!

But developing a marketing plan and executing effective marketing strategies doesn’t have to be a huge time or effort commitment. With the help of technology, you can literally 

• schedule your social media posts,
• scale your email outreach, 
• and even have a smart AI bot write your marketing copy.

The tools are at your fingertips; all you need is a solid plan.

So today, I’m going to outline a 30-minute framework in which you can easily and simply create a marketing plan. This 30-minute plan should act as a spark to light the fuse that will ultimately take your business to the next level. 

It’s not magic. It won’t solve all your problems on its own. 

But it WILL get you over the hurdle of developing a marketing strategy in your small business. From there, you can add, adapt, improve, and leverage your plan to make the most of your marketing efforts.

Let’s dive in!

Why a marketing plan?

“Hold on just a minute,” you might be thinking. “Why do I even need an official marketing plan?”

Maybe you’ve been posting on Instagram or generating word-of-mouth customers for a while now and don’t think you need a marketing plan.

And I guess you might be right. 

Sort of. 

But what you’re missing out on if you don’t develop a marketing plan—even a simple one like I’ll lay out today—is the opportunity to predictably grow your business.

If you’re not 100% sure where your sales are coming from but you just know your current marketing activities are “working,” then what happens when an algorithm changes, or your audience changes, or your advertising channels get saturated?

Any of those changes could be catastrophic if you don’t know what’s working and what’s not when it comes to your marketing.

Not to mention all the time you’re spending on marketing when, according to the Pareto principle, probably about 20% of your actual efforts account for 80% of your sales.

When you build a plan, test what works, and identify what’s not working, you can easily cut out marketing activities that just aren’t delivering.

But if you don’t have a plan to brainstorm, test, analyze, and adapt, you’ll never get to the point that you can grow predictably.

Rethinking “marketing”

Before we get to the framework, I’d like to suggest a paradigm shift in how you think about marketing.

When we think of the word “marketing” most of us tend to think about tasks that are actually classified under “advertising.” 

These tasks include: posting on social media, putting an ad on the radio or TV, printing flyers, or sending out text messages.

In reality, these actions are just one small part of “marketing” and are most effective when considered together with the other portions of what marketing is in reality.

So what is marketing then? To put it simply, marketing consists of three important phases:

• Research & Audience Identification
• Advertising & Promotion
• Customer Experience & Satisfaction

Why am I telling you this?

The truth is: you’re probably spending more time on “marketing” than you think. For example, you’re doing marketing anytime you give a customer a positive experience with your company (increasing chances of high ratings or referrals and further business).

So as we go through the marketing plan today, keep in mind: there’s way more to marketing than just advertising your product to people who may want to buy it.

It’s much deeper than that. 

In reality it’s about finding a “market” fit with your product or service and then providing the best possible solution to your target audience.

The 30-minute marketing plan

Okay, without any more lead-in, let’s get into the actual 30-minute marketing plan. If you follow this framework, you should be able to build a basic, yet impactful marketing plan in 30 minutes or less.

10 Minutes: Audience

You don’t even need a full-length, fancy audience breakdown – you just need an actionable marketing persona. To begin, take around 3 minutes each to provide 1-2 sentences answering all of the following questions:

1. Who is my target audience? 

Think demographics like age, gender and income, but also psychographics like why they buy things, what they’re interested in, or daily behaviors.

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2. What problem will I solve for my target audience?

Author Chris Guillebeau explains a good business idea lies in the convergence of things you’re interested in AND things people are willing to pay for.

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3. Where does my target audience spend their time?

For example, are they heavy smartphone users? Or do they listen to the radio in their car more? Are they on Instagram or Pinterest? Etc. This will be extremely helpful in the next section.

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10 Minutes: Sales

Next, take about 5 minutes each to answer the following questions in 1-2 sentences. The key here is not to get too far into the weeds.

4. How will I get my audience’s attention?

It helps to consider how you stand out from your competition and which media you can leverage to get your company in front of the right customers (see #3 above).

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5. How will I convert attention to lead generation or sales?

Attention is one thing, but actually getting someone to give their contact information or purchase what you’re selling is an entirely different matter.

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5 Minutes: Advertising & Promotion

Then take 5 minutes to brainstorm some advertising promotion ideas. Focus on high-level ideas here and save the nitty-gritty for later. Remember, this is a foundation, not a to-do list.

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5 Minutes: Customer Experience

Finally take 2-3 minutes each to answer the following questions. Remember that some of your most important marketing has to do with the experience you give your customers since they can often lead to future business in the form of repeat sales or customer referrals and ratings.

6. How will I surprise & delight my customers?

As marketer Clay Mosley put it, simply offering good customer service isn’t enough anymore. That comes standard. Instead, identify how you can go above and beyond for your customers or clients.
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7. How will I generate referrals & encourage repeat business?

According to The Harvard Business Review, acquiring a new customer is anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one. That’s why focusing on repeat business and generating referrals are critical to the future growth of your business.
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Repeat the process often

What’s great about having such a quick framework for your marketing is you don’t have to dread the idea of drafting up a new marketing plan for you or your team to follow.

Since it only takes 30 minutes, this is something you can revisit over and over again as your business grows, your product evolves, or your audience changes.

As you learn new things about your product or process, add them to the next iteration of your marketing plan.

Answering some common questions…

Because this was such a quick framework, you’re probably left asking a few questions. Below, allow me to answer some that I think you might have.

What about the tactics?

First, you might be asking: what about all the tactics? The day-to-day marketing “stuff” I have to do?

You’ve got a point. This marketing plan won’t work at all without a similar brainstorming session to address, in more detail, all the little things that need to happen in order to actually DO marketing.

But remember, this 30-minute plan isn’t about DOING, it’s about PLANNING. And far too many small business owners get caught up in the PLANNING too often and never actually get to the DOING. 

By limiting the planning to 30 minutes (repeated every few weeks or months) you can spend more time actually executing on your marketing plan.

You may also want to subscribe to our blog for frequent marketing ideas for small businesses.

What if I don’t know all the answers?

Depending on where you are in your business, you may not have all the answers to the questions above. 

In that case, your first time through it may take you more than 30 minutes. 

If you don’t have a quick answer to a question, I suggest you not get hung up on it. Answer it the best you can and then revisit with any time you have left over. Some questions may help dislodge answers to previously difficult questions.

Some answers may require further investigation: such as where your audience spends their time or which technology you’ll use to capture leads.

You’ve got this!

The whole point of this marketing plan is to get some traction. Marketing doesn’t have to be overwhelming. You don’t have to spend half your working hours on it (unless you want to) and you don’t necessarily have to hire for it.

With this quick plan, you’ll have a framework in place to move forward and make real progress in your small business.

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