The Best Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses in 2023

As a small business entering a new year, it’s important to know the broader digital marketing trends to expect in the industry as a whole, and the smaller tactical strategies that are mainstream and already in full swing. 

We take a look at some of the best marketing strategies for small businesses in 2023.  

PPC (Pay Per Click) Advertising

Go broad on Facebook…

Privacy measures are impacting every aspect of marketing, but for Facebook advertising in particular, we are seeing reduced numbers in audience sizes—both the ones you can select within the platform and your remarketing audiences from website traffic. You want to make sure you give the algorithm enough data to work with, so whether you’re just running campaigns as usual or trying to scale your Facebook ads, keep your audiences broad. You can do this by: 

• Stacking interests. 
• Targeting interested based on pages with large followings in your niche. 
• Expanding your lookalikes from 1% to 5%. 

But not on search…

Search advertising cost per lead has increased significantly this past year and one of the reasons for this is that broad match is becoming broader than ever. 

Google is not only pushing advertisers to use broad match, but also showing ads more broadly across SERPs that don’t have commercial intent. So the strategy here: stick with phrase and exact match and stay on top of your negative keyword lists. 

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

Focus on niche expertise

There have been a few changes in the weights assigned to the different Google ranking factors. In particular, niche expertise has increased and trustworthiness is a new factor. 

Now, this isn’t an exact science, and even the factors that “decreased” in weight are still of the utmost importance.  What does that look like?  

• Produce quality content not just on anything in your industry, but on the key topics related to your core offerings. 
• Promote your posts on social, and encourage influencer authors to promote to their networks as well, for social signals. 
• Use pillar pages and internal linking for topic authority and better ranking in general. 

Simplify your SEO content

When you’re writing for SEO, you need to think in terms of a person seeking answers, not knowledge. They search for something, they pick the article on the SERP that they think best answers that question, and then they look in the article for that answer. There is less of a desire to consume and absorb and more of a desire to get to what they’re looking for and move on. 

Keep your sections super clear and distinct and make your post simple to navigate with a table of contents and clear headings. Not only will this satisfy readers, but it will also make it easier for Google to surface specific answers in rich results and featured snippets. This gives each individual piece of content, and section within your content, the highest chances of ranking on the SERP and delivering value to your target audience. 

Email and Social Media

“Choose Your Own Adventure” emails

This is where the user can take an action right in the email—like voting, reviewing, purchasing, etc—without going to a landing page right away. This is probably a little more feasible for bigger brands, but something you can do that is in line with this trend is to go with a “choose your own adventure” style email. 

You can still have a central call to action but cater it to different user personas or make it more appealing with different ways to approach it.  

Treat every platform like TikTok

Legacy social media platforms are going through an identity crisis as TikTok takes over the world. It’s hard to say whether they’ll find ways to distinguish themselves or just evolve to be more like TikTok, but as of right now, we’re seeing more of the latter. 

What that means for you is, even if your top channels are still Facebook and Instagram, you should be creating content with the mindset that your audience has TIkTok-like expectations on there. That means focusing on: 

• Engaging, short-form video content (Reels, Stories, Shorts). 
• Keeping it real (think somewhat unpolished but still tasteful). 
• Hooking users in the beginning. 
• Maintaining engagement with entertainment (you can still be educational while providing entertainment) 

Social engine optimisation

40% of Gen Z prefers to use TikTok and Instagram for search instead of Google. Get into the habit of treating social platforms like search engines—for local and social search. That means properly categorizing and classifying everything with location tags, user tags, map pins, hashtags, and more. This way, you will have an archive of ranking signals stored up for the future when it matters most. 

Develop a full-funnel strategy

Even though consumers are more conscious of spending and potentially more hesitant to convert, that doesn’t mean they’re not capable or able to convert—even if you sell non-essentials. 

With a full-funnel strategy, you can capture leads and customers with lower-friction offers, and then nurture them through your funnel from there. This doesn’t mean coaxing them through—it means demonstrating your value and earning their trust over time so that they are more confident they are making a worthwhile investment.  

Create or enhance your business identity and expression

Between Gen Z becoming a bigger percentage of the consumer population, diversity and inclusion efforts increasing among brands, and the individualized nature of social media in general having such an influence over our lives, the importance of identity and expression is truly in the spotlight. People want to feel heard, seen, and appreciated. In 2023 and beyond, it’s going to be important to weave this concept into your entire brand identity. Make sure to: 

• Represent a variety of identities in your imagery (gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, physical ability). 
• Run customer feedback and plain old customer appreciation campaigns. 
• Encourage your audience to celebrate their uniqueness, choose their own adventure, and own their story. 

Looking to expand your marketing efforts in 2023? We offer a comprehensive range of digital marketing services that can help your business grow. Contact our team of digital marketing experts today.