How To Advertise Your Small Business: 9 Best Tips

If you’re preparing to launch a small business or looking to expand the reach of your existing business, advertising can help you build brand awareness, increase trust, stand out from competitors, engage new customers, and drive sales.

As you determine the best ways to advertise your small business, the wide range of options available can be overwhelming. To develop and implement a cost-effective small business advertising strategy, you first need an understanding of some best practices. Then, focus on applying them based on your overall business objectives, product or service offerings, and target audience.

The best advertising tips for small businesses:

1. Understand your audience

2. Build a mobile-optimized website

3. Apply search engine optimization (SEO) best practices

4. Set up a Google Business Profile

5. Invest in social media advertising

6. Get involved in online communities

7. Use direct mail

8. Host and attend in-person events

9. Measure and optimize your strategy

1. Understand your audience

Before selecting advertising channels and launching campaigns, a first step in any advertising strategy should be to gain in-depth knowledge about your target audience. By understanding your audience, you can ensure your advertising includes messages that resonate with potential buyers and that your advertisements reach prospects and customers where they typically consume content.

Outline the following information to identify and understand your target audience:

• An overview of your business model, including whether you sell to individual consumers or business buyers
• Top challenges your audience faces and how your products or services address key pain points
• Market research pulled from public data resources, customer interviews, surveys, and focus groups to illustrate the need for your small business offerings
• Competitive research to assess how advertising from similar businesses resonates with your audience
• Demographic and psychographic details to develop a target audience customer profile
• Detailed buyer personas leveraging data from the points above

2. Build a mobile-optimized website

A website is considered one of the most important marketing and sales channels for businesses of all sizes. And with nearly 60% of global website traffic coming from mobile devices, building a mobile-optimized website is key to supporting a positive user experience for your target audience. With a mobile-friendly website, you can improve the results of your small business advertising campaigns when prospective customers engage with your advertisements on mobile devices.

Some steps you can take to optimize your small business for mobile devices include:

• Choosing a responsive design, meaning a design that seamlessly adapts based on screen size, including desktop, tablet, and different mobile devices
• Simplifying website content so users can easily scroll through the most relevant information
• Placing call to action (CTA) buttons and links where mobile visitors are most likely to click—and adding enough spacing between links to avoid user frustrations
• Compressing images and hosting videos on third-party sites to prevent slow loading times on mobile
• Minimizing pop-ups, as they can detract from the user experience on mobile devices
• Regularly testing the website using Google’s free mobile-friendly testing tool or a similar resource

If you need additional support to ensure your small business website is optimized for mobile and other devices, an experienced responsive web designer can help.

3. Apply search engine optimization (SEO) best practices

In addition to optimizing your website for mobile, applying SEO best practices on your website and in advertising collateral can boost the results of your small business advertising strategy. SEO includes the strategies and techniques that make your website and other content more discoverable on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines.

Businesses leverage SEO to increase organic search visibility—and, as a result, organic website traffic—by creating content that aligns with what their customers are looking for and search engine algorithms.  

Here are some examples of SEO best practices to keep in mind as you build and improve your website:

• Including targeted, relevant location- and industry-based keywords in website copy
• Optimizing headlines, page titles, URLs, and meta descriptions with target keywords
• Developing and publishing high-quality, original content on a regular basis
• Maintaining mobile friendliness, website security, and fast page-load times
• Driving traffic to other pages on the website using internal links
• Adding outbound links to credible sources for additional context
• Investing in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, which involves paying to appear at the top of search results for target keywords  

Related: 15 Key SEO Tips for Small Businesses According to SEO Experts

4. Set up a Google Business Profile

Data from Statcounter shows that more than 90% of online search queries worldwide begin on Google. By setting up a free Google Business Profile, you can ensure individuals who find your business on Google Search and Maps see the most updated, relevant information—directly from your company.

Once you claim ownership of your Business Profile, you can personalize it with a list of your business offerings, photos, specials, posts, and more, which will encourage potential customers to visit your website. Options are also available to interact with customers directly through your Business Profile, including direct messaging, following up on reviews, receiving and responding to price quote requests, and scheduling appointments.  

Business Profiles also include performance metrics, such as insights on reviews, calls, website visits, and top search keywords, so you can see how customers discover your business. With this information in mind, you can optimize the content in your Business Profile to appear higher in search results and reach more of your target audience.

5. Invest in social media advertising

Social media is a simple way for small businesses to expand their online reach, build community, share the latest updates with customers and followers, and encourage reviews, sales, and website visits.

While social media platforms have options to set up free accounts, groups, and pages, paid advertising can help your small business identify and target a specialized audience based on demographics, interests, and other criteria. According to a survey of approximately 1,000 small business owners from Visual Objects, a portfolio site for creative agencies, 70% of small businesses invest in social media advertising.  

Here’s a breakdown of advertising options on common social media platforms:

• Facebook. Facebook data shows that 1.6 billion people are connected to small businesses on the platform, which has offered advertising as part of its business model since 2004. This offering started to grow significantly in 2007, when the Facebook Ads platform, now known as Meta for Business, launched. Meta for Business utilizes a PPC model with options to create ads with photos, text, videos, and slideshows. Self-serve tools are available to build and run campaigns and track performance with user-friendly reports.
• Instagram. Advertisers leverage Meta for Business to run targeted Instagram ads similar to those on Facebook. Individual Instagram posts can be boosted using advertising funds by simply deciding where to send users (such as a page on your small business website), the target audience for the post, and how much to spend. Detailed insights are available to track ad performance and improve over time.
• LinkedIn. LinkedIn advertising uses a PPC model, and is more commonly used for business-to-business (B2B) campaigns. Business advertisers can select from Google-style text ads or sponsored photos, videos, and ads that appear in targeted LinkedIn users’ feeds. Another available option is sending message-style ads directly to individuals’ LinkedIn inboxes.

6. Get involved in online communities

Engaging in online communities as a small business owner can help you build your professional network, reach more members of your target customer base, and learn tips to make your small business thrive, among other benefits. Many options are available, some of which are free, while others charge a membership or subscription fee.

Consider participating in online communities by:

• Starting or responding to discussions in industry-specific groups on LinkedIn, Reddit, and other networks or forums  
• Joining small business communities to learn lessons and best practices from other small business leaders across industries
• Answering questions relevant to your area of expertise on Quora and related websites
• Attending virtual online networking events and conferences
• Promoting your products or services in neighborhood groups on Facebook or the Nextdoor network (if you run a local business)

7. Use direct mail

While research from Gartner shows that more than half (56%) of marketing budgets are now allocated to digital channels, offline channels can still drive positive small business advertising results. Through direct mail, your small business can send postcards, flyers, letters, discount codes, and other relevant advertising assets directly to a prospective or existing customer’s mailbox.

Postal services including but not limited to the United States Postal Service, Canada Post, Australia Post, and Royal Mail in the United Kingdom all offer businesses ways to send ads directly to groups of people based on location and other demographics. This helps ensure you only spend direct mail advertising funds on mailings to individuals that match your target audience profile.

Local small businesses often embrace direct mail to reach new customers in surrounding communities. For example, a restaurant might mail out a menu with a few coupons attached or a local gym might send a postcard offering a free trial membership. Small businesses can also reach existing customers through direct mail and offer an incentive for making a repeat purchase or joining a loyalty program.

8. Host and attend in-person events

In-person events can help you build personal connections with prospective and existing customers, members of the local community, industry peers, and potential investors or other stakeholders relevant to your business. Events also increase brand awareness, as your company name and branding will be more recognizable to attendees after an event.

Here are a few ways to include in-person events in your small business advertising strategy:

• Hosting a grand opening event if your small business is a local, brick-and-mortar store or in-person service—and advertising the event in local newspapers and other channels
• Sponsoring a local sports team or other organization and attending games or events to meet members of the community
• Offering informational sessions or workshops for prospective customers to learn more about your offerings
• Attending industry networking gatherings and trade shows to learn about the latest trends and best practices
• Exhibiting, buying a sponsorship package, or securing a speaking engagement at industry events to increase brand recognition

9. Measure and optimize your strategy

Advertising can have a significant impact on your broader strategic small business objectives. Measuring the results of your overall advertising strategy, specific campaigns, and individual channels can help you improve your strategy over time—which will help maximize advertising budget ROI.

Some metrics you can track to assess your small business advertising efforts include:

• Overall website traffic and traffic by source
• Total investment in each advertising channel
• Advertisement impressions
• Click-through-rate (CTR)
• Likes, shares, comments, and other engagement metrics on social media
• Total conversions, such as making a purchase, scheduling a demo, or signing up for a newsletter
• Conversion rate and cost per conversion  
• Total return on advertising investment by advertising campaign or channel
  

If your small business doesn’t reach your projected advertising goals, you may need to reallocate budget from certain campaigns or channels that aren’t performing and increase investment in advertising tactics that drive stronger results.

In addition to assessing your existing small business advertising strategy, continually monitor competitors’ marketing and advertising tactics, as well as any emerging trends, economic shifts, or advertising mediums relevant to your industry or target audience.

Simplify your small business advertising

As a small business owner, advertising is likely only one of many priorities you’re focused on to grow your business. Consider enlisting the help of an outside expert to save time and resources while ensuring your strategy incorporates the latest proven advertising best practices.  

An independent digital marketing professional can help you develop and implement an effective small business advertising strategy. Search for fixed-price projects and one-on-one consultations through Project Catalog™ on Upwork and select the option that best meets your small business advertising needs. Get started by browsing available marketing projects.

If you’re an advertising or marketing professional eager to help small businesses improve their advertising efforts, create an Upwork account to begin selling projects today.