As a small business owner, you know how hard it can be to get noticed and stand out. Whether you're just starting out or looking to grow your business, there are countless marketing tactics to choose from. So where do you start? 

In this post, we’re sharing 11 practical marketing tips for small businesses that will help you increase visibility, engage your audience, and grow your business without breaking the bank.

We’re going to cover how to:

• Start with a clear marketing strategy 
• Focus efforts where your audience is active, repurpose existing content across platforms, and batch-create social media posts 
• Use tools like AI copywriters and KPI dashboards to speed up content creation, track performance, and make smarter marketing decisions
• Grow your reach by collaborating with other businesses, asking for referrals, creating a strong lead magnet, and testing low-budget ad campaigns

1. Start With a Marketing Strategy

This is #1 on our list of marketing tips for small businesses for a reason. If you don’t have a marketing strategy in place, you’re just doing “random acts of marketing.” Sure, something here and there might seem like it’s performing well, but how can you even measure it? You need to know how your marketing efforts support your overall business goals, not just vanity metrics. 

Doing things on the fly isn’t a strategy, and it usually leads to inconsistent marketing. You might have a solid month, but what happens when you get busy? Your Instagram or other channels probably go untouched for a while, right? 

A strategy gives you purpose and direction so it’s easier to come up with content ideas and create consistency. 

To get started, think about the following: 

• Your target audience
• Your goals
• Your tactics (the channels and tasks you’ll focus on)
• How much time you have (a realistic cadence you can commit to)

Bonus marketing tips for small businesses: Use Enji’s marketing strategy generator to get a customized marketing strategy in minutes!

2. Focus On Where Your Audience Is

It can be tempting to show up everywhere, especially if you’re a new business owner. But because you’re a small business owner, you need to protect your time! 

Realistically, we bet you don’t have the capacity to be posting across Pinterest, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, blogging, running ads, optimizing your website, and doing email marketing. That list of to-dos is so overwhelming—and even though it’s pretty close to our marketing to-dos, we have a team to get it all done!). 

Instead, choose two or three marketing channels (places or platforms) where you know your audience is showing up, and focus on those. If you’re not sure, you can ask your current clients or do a quick search in your industry. 

3. Repurpose Your Content

Once you get going with your marketing, it can feel like you have to always be coming up with new ideas. New topics, new graphics, new videos–the list goes on. But you really don’t have to make it so hard on yourself. Instead, focus on creating some really strong core pieces and then repurposing your content. Take what you have and think about how you can use it across different channels. 

For example, long-form content like a blog post can turn into lots of Pinterest infographics and (at least) an Instagram carousel. Or a podcast episode can easily become Reels and TikTok videos if you record video too. 

Repurposing is key to staying consistent, promoting your content, and saving you time and energy! We know for sure that we’ll be pushing out this blog post to Instagram stories, our email list, Pinterest, and maybe even creating a Youtube video! Because the reality is, just because you create a piece of content, it doesn’t mean people will see it. You have to make sure they do.

4. Batch-Create Social Media Content Once a Week

Want more tips to save time? Here’s a big one: set aside time to batch-create your social media content and pre-schedule it to post. This could be once a week, every other week, or once a month if you’re just trying to keep the social media lights on. 

This makes it way easier to avoid the “random acts of marketing” we mentioned earlier. If you don’t set aside time, that means you’ll be relying on day-to-day work to come up with content, create it, and publish it. 

We already know you don’t have that time every day, so why not make it easier on yourself? By batch-creating content, you can also ensure your marketing stays consistent.

5. Use an AI Copywriter to Speed Up Your Work

One of the hardest parts of small business marketing is just figuring out what to say (over and over and over again). You might have a great idea, but copywriting for different platforms is hard (especially at the end of a longggg day, which we know you’re used to as a small business owner).

To speed up the process, take advantage of an AI copywriter like Enji’s. You can plug in your original ideas and quickly get drafts of blog posts and social media captions. 

And don’t be worried about it not sounding like you—Enji’s AI copywriter is tied to a brand voice generator, so the content it drafts always sounds like you. You might want to finesse the finished text a little, but we’re pretty confident we can get you 90% of the way there in seconds.

6. Create One Solid Lead Magnet to Grow Your Email List

For small businesses, email marketing can be such an important marketing channel. But we also know (especially in the beginning), it can feel like just one more thing to do.

So let’s try to make it easier.

To grow your email list, we recommend creating just one solid lead magnet that you can continue to promote through targeted campaigns. Enji can help you out with that through our marketing campaign templates—they’ll show you exactly how you can promote your lead magnet online. 

Then it all comes down to promoting your lead magnet. And you can use pop-ups or forms to grow your email list, then nurture those folks to continue to show your value! 

7. Collaborate With Another Small Business

Are you tapping into your small business community? If not, you’re missing out on a ton of opportunities! 

From our experience, small business owners are always willing to help each other out and collaborating with each other is excellent for marketing. Hello—public relations!

You can work with another business that offers similar or complementary services to create a collaboration post, giveaway, or an offer. It’s a win-win, because you’ll both reach new audiences!

8. Ask for Referrals

Word-of-mouth will always be a powerful (though sometimes underrated) way to market your small business. With all the time you spend on your digital marketing, make sure you’re spending some of it keeping top of mind with the folks who can refer you. 

Focus on making it easy for your existing or past customers and clients as well as your professional network to talk about what you do. You can go to networking events, send holiday cards, or start a referral or loyalty program. Basically you just need to build in reminders to not do all of your marketing from your computer. 

For example, maybe you have an automated email that sends in the middle of a project as well as at the end to remind clients that you offer discounts for referral clients. This can be a really low-lift way to get a ton of leads.

9. Track What’s Working With a KPI Dashboard

We mentioned earlier how a strategy gives you purpose and direction. It also gives you something to measure, which is how you can tell if these marketing tips for small businesses are even working. 

But most small business owners aren’t tracking any numbers, and that’s why we created our KPI dashboard. In a simple, visual dashboard, you can pull in analytics from all of the channels you use and view everything in one place—not as rows of numbers, but as easy-to-understand graphs! 

Instead of combing through all of your numbers on each platform, you just have to log in to Enji to track your progress. Plus, it makes it easier to focus on the numbers that actually matter based on your strategy. 

10. Test a Low-Budget Ad Campaign

As small business owners, we tend to shy away from advertising. Are you guilty of wanting your marketing to be 100% free? We get it.

You might not think you have the budget or the expertise to spend money on your marketing. But even a small campaign can make a huge difference, and you’ll never know if you don’t try. 

To get started, test a low-budget ad campaign (it can be just $5 to $10 a day) with a clear CTA. You can get a ton of information even if you don’t immediately see results. 

For instance, an ad campaign can tell you if your CTA is strong, if your landing page converts, and if you’re reaching the right people. For more information, head to this post breaking down what you need to know to get started with Facebook and Instagram ads.

11. Don’t Forget to Share Your Story

Our last tip is the easiest—don’t forget to be yourself! As a small business owner, so much of your brand is just you. People will buy from you because they trust you, so don’t forget to put yourself out there. 

Your why, your face, and your story can all set you apart and show why you’re the best person to work with, not just the best business. 

Being able to use yourself and your personality is a huge small business advantage! Unlike bigger brands, it can be easier to connect directly with people, so don’t be afraid to show up more as yourself. 

Putting it All Together: Make Your Marketing Easier With Enji!

If you’re still not sure how to start using these marketing tips for small businesses, Enji makes it all much easier. As an all-in-one marketing platform built for small businesses, it combines everything you need to build your strategy, create content, schedule, and track your progress. Get started today with a free trial and let us prove it to you!