Marketing for Small Business: Boosting Your Impact on a Budget | 163
Unlock the secrets to creating a grand marketing splash with a modest budget in our latest Saturday Strategy Session. I take you through my personal marketing journey, revealing how a series of direct interactions and a focus on cultivating a community have been instrumental in building a base of loyal fans. Experience the transformative power of personalized DMs, emails, and intimate coaching, and see how these tools can become your secret weapons in the world of marketing. You'll also learn about the untapped potential of testimonials and case studies, and why they are critical for resonating with and securing future clients.
Strap in for a masterclass on driving efficiency and productivity in small business management. This episode is packed with golden nuggets on how to make a significant marketing impact without overwhelming your team. From single-tasking to smart delegation, you'll get a crash course on managing your workflow and finances with finesse. I’ll share how to allocate your marketing budget to get the most bang for your buck, including targeted Facebook ads and essential software. By the end of our session, you'll be armed with strategies to grow your business, your email list, and you'll have access to a treasure trove of resources in the show notes to help you put everything you've learned into action.
In this episode, we chat about…
✨ Building Relationships with a Small Audience [00:22]
✨ Maximizing Impact with a Small Team [04:38]
✨ Marketing on a Budget [10:12]
Resources Mentioned:
—> How Tripwire Marketing Can Help Your TPT Business with Jenzaia DiMartile on The Rebranded Teacher Podcast
Episode Transcript:
Hello. And welcome back today. We're going to be talking about. Small marketing. A big impact. And specifically we are going to. Be talking about. How you can make a big impact. With a small audience, a small team and a small marketing budget.
So to get started. Let's talk about when you have a small audience. I actually love this time period in a business because it's really, really great for building loyal raving fans. It's a perfect time for you to have lots of one-on-one conversation to be responding to people's DMS, because there's not a ton of them coming in. My personal philosophy is if I can answer a question in less than five minutes. I'm going to do it. And I have maintained that as my business grows, you're going to have to find the rule that works for you for answering emails or DMS.
And the answer today, when you have this smaller audience might be different than your answer any year, five years, 10 years, as your audience continues to grow. But I do really think that it's important when your audience is small, that you give yourself the time and space to be facilitating conversations that are going to grow relationships and that you can build. The trust and nurture those relationships because you, you won't have the capacity as your business and your audience specifically grows.
And it's a really, really great marketing word of mouth has been a successful form of marketing for a really long time. It's not going anywhere. And even in the online space where we're not. It's not the same as in-person. Word of mouth marketing is still very important. If I need something in my business, the first thing I'm going to do is reach out to my circle of biz besties.
The other women who have businesses that are thriving and say, Hey, I need this. Do you know anyone who does that? And that's my first. My first thing. So. By creating those powerful relationships. You'll be top of mind when someone in those people's circles say, Hey, do you know anyone who does X, Y, Z, and then those loyal raving fans that you've created through the one-to-one marketing, the one-to-one. Relationship building. Will in turn refer you.
So that's part of it. And then the other piece is while your market or, well, your audience is still really small. You can create really intimate, amazing one-to-one programs or small group coaching programs, memberships where the members have, again, that. Personal touch and they really feel like you are there for their business and you are able to give them personalized feedback. Which, depending on the setup of your business, you may or may not be able to continue to do and to facilitate down the line.
And then the last thing that's really great about a small audience. And these one-to-one connections that you're making, whether they're through coaching programs or in the DMS, is that you can build. Testimonials up. And to grow case studies up because these people who know you personally, because they're working directly with you. Are going to give great testimonials and you'll be able to create a bank of case studies if it's appropriate for your business. That you can start to provide you to new potential clients or new audience members.
And you can use these as success stories. So I actually really love the small audience phase because I think that it's just really great for nurturing finding your message, because as you're telling these people, one-to-one, you're telling the same thing again and again, and you really have a chance to like perfect that. Okay. Next small team.
How can you make a big impact with your marketing? When it's just you or maybe you and another person. My first recommendation is don't try to multitask. When I had my very first teaching job in Ontario. I was covering for somebody who was on a sick leave and that coverage that I was doing, I was ending at March break. So I went up until March break and then, uh, they came back after March break and so at the beginning of March break, I had been there since Thanksgiving and in Ontario.
That is October. So I've been there from the beginning of October until the middle of March. That classroom had become my classroom. And I knew that there was some things that were just a bit of a disaster, like in the supply closet and the desk. And my things are just like everywhere. I had to take them off the wall and off the shelves and all that.
Right. So I spent a day at the beginning of March break, just like cleaning up the classrooms. So they knew when I handed the keys over to her metaphorically. The keys at my school at the time. Just like a skeleton key. But anyway, when I metaphorically handed the key over to her. I knew that it was going to be a clean classroom.
So I started cleaning in the supply closet and organizing the paper that was there, throwing out the junk. And then I noticed. Uh, we'll have to empty the recycling bin and you know, so I went and I empty the recycling man. I came back and I started to sweep the floor, completely having forgot about the supply closet mission that I was on.
And then as I was sweeping, the floor noticed something on the shelves. And so I started organizing out a thing on the shelf and then I had to put something back in the supply closet and I went over there and was like, oh yeah, this apply. Closet's a disaster. Continue organizing, you know, and I did that thing where you're here and then you're there and you're over here a little bit like a squirrel. And. I think had I really just focused in, on one task at a time. And kept my brain focused on the task at hand.
And I hadn't been tasks switching here and here and here and here, I probably would have been done sooner. It would not have taken me the entire day that it did take. So I'm multitasking. There's so many studies and so much research that shows that the task switching that we do when we're trying to multitask actually waste energy and it wastes time.
And that we're so much more effective. If we just focus on one thing and we. Single task. The opposite of multitask is solo dads. If we just like focus. And with that the same piece of focus. Is batching. So I'm recording this episode and then I actually have two more that I'm hoping to record after this.
So batch, batch batch, because again, you're already focused on one thing I've thought through now I've recorded. This is like 163 or something like this. I've recorded a lot of podcasts. So I have a step-by-step procedure that I follow. But. Getting off of this recording onto my next recording onto the next recording.
I already have the programs open. I already have my script open. I already have everything that I need in front of me. I don't have to switch and switch and switch trying to figure out. Okay, what am I doing? And I'm already focused. I don't have a game open. I don't have videos open. I really just am 100% focused on recording the podcast.
And with this focused energy, I can continue on and get those other podcasts recorded and then I can move into editing and then I can move into like the next phase. Right.
The next thing, if you have a small team is you need to be realistic. Batching goes a long way because you can get the podcast out of the way all at once. And then you don't have to think about, and you can put your energy somewhere else. But you need to be real estate, what we can do and you can't do, and what your priorities are.
So for me, my priorities are number one, client work, number two, podcasts, number three, email and number four, social media. And if you've been hanging out in my world recently, social media is kind of not even kind of it. Disappeared for, I think it was like eight to 10 weeks. It just wasn't. It was so far beyond a priority.
It just was like, non-existent. And that's okay because it was fourth on my priority list. Emails, there was a couple of issues, but I didn't miss a podcast and my client work was done. Every single day. So knowing what your priorities are and what you can and cannot accomplish within those priorities, when you have a small team is really, really important. I also highly encourage you to hire some support to take some of it.
And some of the work, some of the pressure off of you. To alleviate. Some of the tasks that you're needing to do and to give you back some time. So if that's a VA that's helping you for five or 10 hours a week or a month. Great. If it is a podcast manager or a blog writer or a social media manager, like those are all amazing ways for you to maintain consistency in your building. Bill. Maintain consistency in your business. And also. Get back some of your time. And then the last thing I want to talk about is if you have a small marketing budget, It's very, very specifically marketing. And some of the most important things that you can do with that marketing budget is market research.
If that makes, if that's something you want to spend money on. You could, or you could invest more of your time, which is what I recommend creating a survey for people to fill out, getting onto phone calls, having those conversations, really understanding and knowing your audience is a really, really great way to spend your time or your money at any point in your business. Whether you have a small or a large marketing budget. Also investing in some of the key. Software that is going to help your business run smoothly. And take again, some of that pressure off.
So when I get a new client, Does most of the heavy lifting for me, I have to push a couple buttons. And like get them into the system, but I am not the one who's typing out every single email. I mean, I did, but I don't have to do that anymore. These are automated emails that Sends out for me, it's a very key piece of software in my business.
So. I started off with a lot of free software dubsado. So for example has three free clients at the beginning. Loom has a free option. Canva has a free option. So many of them have free options. So you can try them out, test them, see if they're going to work for your business. And then some of them like Canva, for example, I pay for the pro version. But other ones like a sauna. I don't and I've been using a sauna for four years now.
I absolutely love it. It is a pinned tab in my browser. It never closes, it houses all of my, to do's for business and home. It saved my butt. I don't pay for it though. I don't need to, I don't need the paid features, which is really, really amazing. And so trying out the free product, like the free software to figure out where, which ones you need, which ones are gonna save you the most time.
If you want to spend some of that marketing budget on ads, you absolutely can run Facebook ads to grow your email list for as little as five to $10 per day.
That is always, always, always my recommendation as the first ad that you're running is a lead generation ad to grow your email list. Because even if you have astronomically high co lead costs like $5 a lead, and that $5 is only getting you one new person on your email list that. 365 new people every single year.
If you had that, that add on. 365 days. Right? So you're going to get, you're going to have some growth and with growth is momentum and consistency and stability. So if you have a small budget and you want to spend it on Facebook ads, Use it to grow your email list. I also really like using tripwires and many of my clients implement tripwires so we run the ad to a freebie and then we on the thank you page, instead of it just saying like, thanks, go check your inbox.
It says, thanks. Check your inbox. And also, do you want to buy this awesome thing that's related to the freebie? If you want to learn more about trip wires. I thought I did an episode on trip wires, but I didn't, I've definitely done at least one guest episode about trip wires. So I'm going to find that I'll put it in the show notes that you can go and listen to the episode from my own podcast that I'm thinking of, but also the guest episode that I did with someone else on their podcasts, I will make sure that I've linked it in the show notes for you to listen to. Trip wires are really great because they can help you recoup some of your ad spend. It might not be a hundred percent of your ad spend. So if you spend $10 a day, And you sell a $7 tripwire. You've spent $10, but you've made seven. And so really. In the long, like the bigger picture, you're only spending that $3 on your lead costs. So you're cutting your costs back by $7 per day, which is amazing and really, really helpful. So if you do have that smaller budget and you wanted to run ads, then considering a trip wire is. Can be a very powerful strategy. It's also a really great way for you to increase your budget because you have that $10 a day, but you're making seven, so you could bump it up to $17 and then you're making a little bit more and you can spend a little bit more. And so it can be a machine that helps to build your ad, spend budget up to a larger daily budget. And then just make sure. Even if you don't have a tripwire that you're selling in your welcome sequence. So someone joins your email list. And at some point in those five to 10 emails that you send out, you are sharing how they can purchase from you, how you help people and what it is exactly that you do. So that if they're ready to join your program or to become a client, whatever it might be. That they can figure out exactly how to do it in that welcome sequence. Okay. So let's recap if you have a small business right now, and I mean like micro, small business, but you want to make a big impact. We talked about how you can do that with a small audience by capitalizing on those one-to-one relationships. That you can be building right now. How to make it have a big impact, even with a small team. By prioritizing and batching, batching, batching, and then also how to make a big impact with that small marketing budget. By again, prioritizing, figuring out the best offers for you, and then some strategies to run Facebook ads with just $5 a day. I will be back in your ear, actually not next week. We're taking a break off for the Easter holiday weekend. So we'll be back in two weeks with another Saturday strategy session. Have a great day.
So to get started. Let's talk about when you have a small audience. I actually love this time period in a business because it's really, really great for building loyal raving fans. It's a perfect time for you to have lots of one-on-one conversation to be responding to people's DMS, because there's not a ton of them coming in. My personal philosophy is if I can answer a question in less than five minutes. I'm going to do it. And I have maintained that as my business grows, you're going to have to find the rule that works for you for answering emails or DMS.
And the answer today, when you have this smaller audience might be different than your answer any year, five years, 10 years, as your audience continues to grow. But I do really think that it's important when your audience is small, that you give yourself the time and space to be facilitating conversations that are going to grow relationships and that you can build. The trust and nurture those relationships because you, you won't have the capacity as your business and your audience specifically grows.
And it's a really, really great marketing word of mouth has been a successful form of marketing for a really long time. It's not going anywhere. And even in the online space where we're not. It's not the same as in-person. Word of mouth marketing is still very important. If I need something in my business, the first thing I'm going to do is reach out to my circle of biz besties.
The other women who have businesses that are thriving and say, Hey, I need this. Do you know anyone who does that? And that's my first. My first thing. So. By creating those powerful relationships. You'll be top of mind when someone in those people's circles say, Hey, do you know anyone who does X, Y, Z, and then those loyal raving fans that you've created through the one-to-one marketing, the one-to-one. Relationship building. Will in turn refer you.
So that's part of it. And then the other piece is while your market or, well, your audience is still really small. You can create really intimate, amazing one-to-one programs or small group coaching programs, memberships where the members have, again, that. Personal touch and they really feel like you are there for their business and you are able to give them personalized feedback. Which, depending on the setup of your business, you may or may not be able to continue to do and to facilitate down the line.
And then the last thing that's really great about a small audience. And these one-to-one connections that you're making, whether they're through coaching programs or in the DMS, is that you can build. Testimonials up. And to grow case studies up because these people who know you personally, because they're working directly with you. Are going to give great testimonials and you'll be able to create a bank of case studies if it's appropriate for your business. That you can start to provide you to new potential clients or new audience members.
And you can use these as success stories. So I actually really love the small audience phase because I think that it's just really great for nurturing finding your message, because as you're telling these people, one-to-one, you're telling the same thing again and again, and you really have a chance to like perfect that. Okay. Next small team.
How can you make a big impact with your marketing? When it's just you or maybe you and another person. My first recommendation is don't try to multitask. When I had my very first teaching job in Ontario. I was covering for somebody who was on a sick leave and that coverage that I was doing, I was ending at March break. So I went up until March break and then, uh, they came back after March break and so at the beginning of March break, I had been there since Thanksgiving and in Ontario.
That is October. So I've been there from the beginning of October until the middle of March. That classroom had become my classroom. And I knew that there was some things that were just a bit of a disaster, like in the supply closet and the desk. And my things are just like everywhere. I had to take them off the wall and off the shelves and all that.
Right. So I spent a day at the beginning of March break, just like cleaning up the classrooms. So they knew when I handed the keys over to her metaphorically. The keys at my school at the time. Just like a skeleton key. But anyway, when I metaphorically handed the key over to her. I knew that it was going to be a clean classroom.
So I started cleaning in the supply closet and organizing the paper that was there, throwing out the junk. And then I noticed. Uh, we'll have to empty the recycling bin and you know, so I went and I empty the recycling man. I came back and I started to sweep the floor, completely having forgot about the supply closet mission that I was on.
And then as I was sweeping, the floor noticed something on the shelves. And so I started organizing out a thing on the shelf and then I had to put something back in the supply closet and I went over there and was like, oh yeah, this apply. Closet's a disaster. Continue organizing, you know, and I did that thing where you're here and then you're there and you're over here a little bit like a squirrel. And. I think had I really just focused in, on one task at a time. And kept my brain focused on the task at hand.
And I hadn't been tasks switching here and here and here and here, I probably would have been done sooner. It would not have taken me the entire day that it did take. So I'm multitasking. There's so many studies and so much research that shows that the task switching that we do when we're trying to multitask actually waste energy and it wastes time.
And that we're so much more effective. If we just focus on one thing and we. Single task. The opposite of multitask is solo dads. If we just like focus. And with that the same piece of focus. Is batching. So I'm recording this episode and then I actually have two more that I'm hoping to record after this.
So batch, batch batch, because again, you're already focused on one thing I've thought through now I've recorded. This is like 163 or something like this. I've recorded a lot of podcasts. So I have a step-by-step procedure that I follow. But. Getting off of this recording onto my next recording onto the next recording.
I already have the programs open. I already have my script open. I already have everything that I need in front of me. I don't have to switch and switch and switch trying to figure out. Okay, what am I doing? And I'm already focused. I don't have a game open. I don't have videos open. I really just am 100% focused on recording the podcast.
And with this focused energy, I can continue on and get those other podcasts recorded and then I can move into editing and then I can move into like the next phase. Right.
The next thing, if you have a small team is you need to be realistic. Batching goes a long way because you can get the podcast out of the way all at once. And then you don't have to think about, and you can put your energy somewhere else. But you need to be real estate, what we can do and you can't do, and what your priorities are.
So for me, my priorities are number one, client work, number two, podcasts, number three, email and number four, social media. And if you've been hanging out in my world recently, social media is kind of not even kind of it. Disappeared for, I think it was like eight to 10 weeks. It just wasn't. It was so far beyond a priority.
It just was like, non-existent. And that's okay because it was fourth on my priority list. Emails, there was a couple of issues, but I didn't miss a podcast and my client work was done. Every single day. So knowing what your priorities are and what you can and cannot accomplish within those priorities, when you have a small team is really, really important. I also highly encourage you to hire some support to take some of it.
And some of the work, some of the pressure off of you. To alleviate. Some of the tasks that you're needing to do and to give you back some time. So if that's a VA that's helping you for five or 10 hours a week or a month. Great. If it is a podcast manager or a blog writer or a social media manager, like those are all amazing ways for you to maintain consistency in your building. Bill. Maintain consistency in your business. And also. Get back some of your time. And then the last thing I want to talk about is if you have a small marketing budget, It's very, very specifically marketing. And some of the most important things that you can do with that marketing budget is market research.
If that makes, if that's something you want to spend money on. You could, or you could invest more of your time, which is what I recommend creating a survey for people to fill out, getting onto phone calls, having those conversations, really understanding and knowing your audience is a really, really great way to spend your time or your money at any point in your business. Whether you have a small or a large marketing budget. Also investing in some of the key. Software that is going to help your business run smoothly. And take again, some of that pressure off.
So when I get a new client, Does most of the heavy lifting for me, I have to push a couple buttons. And like get them into the system, but I am not the one who's typing out every single email. I mean, I did, but I don't have to do that anymore. These are automated emails that Sends out for me, it's a very key piece of software in my business.
So. I started off with a lot of free software dubsado. So for example has three free clients at the beginning. Loom has a free option. Canva has a free option. So many of them have free options. So you can try them out, test them, see if they're going to work for your business. And then some of them like Canva, for example, I pay for the pro version. But other ones like a sauna. I don't and I've been using a sauna for four years now.
I absolutely love it. It is a pinned tab in my browser. It never closes, it houses all of my, to do's for business and home. It saved my butt. I don't pay for it though. I don't need to, I don't need the paid features, which is really, really amazing. And so trying out the free product, like the free software to figure out where, which ones you need, which ones are gonna save you the most time.
If you want to spend some of that marketing budget on ads, you absolutely can run Facebook ads to grow your email list for as little as five to $10 per day.
That is always, always, always my recommendation as the first ad that you're running is a lead generation ad to grow your email list. Because even if you have astronomically high co lead costs like $5 a lead, and that $5 is only getting you one new person on your email list that. 365 new people every single year.
If you had that, that add on. 365 days. Right? So you're going to get, you're going to have some growth and with growth is momentum and consistency and stability. So if you have a small budget and you want to spend it on Facebook ads, Use it to grow your email list. I also really like using tripwires and many of my clients implement tripwires so we run the ad to a freebie and then we on the thank you page, instead of it just saying like, thanks, go check your inbox.
It says, thanks. Check your inbox. And also, do you want to buy this awesome thing that's related to the freebie? If you want to learn more about trip wires. I thought I did an episode on trip wires, but I didn't, I've definitely done at least one guest episode about trip wires. So I'm going to find that I'll put it in the show notes that you can go and listen to the episode from my own podcast that I'm thinking of, but also the guest episode that I did with someone else on their podcasts, I will make sure that I've linked it in the show notes for you to listen to. Trip wires are really great because they can help you recoup some of your ad spend. It might not be a hundred percent of your ad spend. So if you spend $10 a day, And you sell a $7 tripwire. You've spent $10, but you've made seven. And so really. In the long, like the bigger picture, you're only spending that $3 on your lead costs. So you're cutting your costs back by $7 per day, which is amazing and really, really helpful. So if you do have that smaller budget and you wanted to run ads, then considering a trip wire is. Can be a very powerful strategy. It's also a really great way for you to increase your budget because you have that $10 a day, but you're making seven, so you could bump it up to $17 and then you're making a little bit more and you can spend a little bit more. And so it can be a machine that helps to build your ad, spend budget up to a larger daily budget. And then just make sure. Even if you don't have a tripwire that you're selling in your welcome sequence. So someone joins your email list. And at some point in those five to 10 emails that you send out, you are sharing how they can purchase from you, how you help people and what it is exactly that you do. So that if they're ready to join your program or to become a client, whatever it might be. That they can figure out exactly how to do it in that welcome sequence. Okay. So let's recap if you have a small business right now, and I mean like micro, small business, but you want to make a big impact. We talked about how you can do that with a small audience by capitalizing on those one-to-one relationships. That you can be building right now. How to make it have a big impact, even with a small team. By prioritizing and batching, batching, batching, and then also how to make a big impact with that small marketing budget. By again, prioritizing, figuring out the best offers for you, and then some strategies to run Facebook ads with just $5 a day. I will be back in your ear, actually not next week. We're taking a break off for the Easter holiday weekend. So we'll be back in two weeks with another Saturday strategy session. Have a great day.
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