The short version
- A small business marketing strategy fits on one page: who you sell to, why they’d choose you, a dated goal, a budget and two or three channels.
- Start with the people already looking for you: a complete Google Business Profile, a steady flow of reviews and a website that makes it easy to get in touch.
- Then get more from the customers you have. Referrals, repeat business and a regular email usually cost far less than finding strangers.
- Pay for reach once the basics convert: Google Ads when people search for what you sell, Facebook and Instagram ads when they don’t.
- Choose two or three channels and run them properly for about three months before judging them (SEO needs longer).
- Track enquiries and sales by where they came from. Asking every new customer how they found you is free and still works.
The marketing that brings small businesses the most work is usually the least glamorous. Before you spend on a campaign, make sure the people who already want what you sell can find you, trust you and get in touch easily. A missed call, a slow website or a profile with three old reviews loses work without ever showing up in a report.
This guide starts with how to write your marketing strategy on one page. Then it covers the ideas that tend to work for UK small businesses, roughly in the order to tackle them, and how to budget and measure. You won’t need all of them. Two or three channels run properly will do more for you than ten you only have time to dabble in.
Write your small business marketing strategy on one page
A small business marketing strategy, or marketing plan, fits on one page. Answering five questions before you start stops you chasing every new idea you see, and gives you something to check results against.
- Who buys from you? Describe your best customers: what they need, where they are and how they find businesses like yours. Base it on your last 20 customers.
- Why should they choose you? One sentence on what you do better or differently, in the words a customer would use. If you can’t write it down, your marketing will struggle to say it.
- What’s the goal? Make it measurable and give it a date. “Fifteen more enquiries a month by June” tells you whether it worked; “grow the business” doesn’t.
- What can you spend? Money and time. Owners often run out of time before they run out of budget, so be honest about the hours.
- Which two or three channels? Pick them from the ideas below to suit your answers.
For worked examples, see our marketing plans for a small clothing business, a law firm, a construction or trades business and a dental practice. If you’d rather have help writing yours, that’s what our marketing strategy work covers.
A quick SWOT analysis before you choose
A SWOT analysis takes about 20 minutes and makes the channel choice easier. List your strengths (what you do well, what customers praise in reviews), weaknesses (where you lose work or look weaker than competitors), opportunities (gaps in your area or market you could fill) and threats (a new competitor, rising costs, a change in demand). Then ask which marketing would make the most of a strength or fix a weakness. If your reviews are excellent but there are only a handful, collecting more is your first job.
An example plan
An invented business, to show how short a plan can be. For a fuller example, see our marketing plan for a small clothing business.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Customers | Dog owners within about ten miles, mostly busy working households who search on their phone |
| Why us | We come to you, so there’s no car journey with a nervous dog |
| Goal | Twelve new regular clients by the end of March |
| Budget | £300 a month on ads, plus two hours a week |
| Channels | Google Business Profile and reviews, a simple booking page, Facebook and Instagram ads to local dog owners, a reminder email every six weeks |
Get found by people who are already looking
Someone searching for what you sell has already decided they need it. They’re the easiest customers to win, so start here.
1. Complete your Google Business Profile
For any business with local customers, your profile is often the first thing people see, in the map results and on Google Maps. Choose the most accurate primary category, list every service, keep your hours right (including bank holidays), add real photos and post updates now and then. It costs nothing. Our guide to why local SEO is important goes through it step by step.
2. Ask every happy customer for a review
Reviews affect where you appear and whether people pick you once they see you. Ask when the customer is happiest, usually just after the job is done or the order arrives, and send a direct link so it takes them a minute. Reply to every review, good or bad. Google’s rules don’t allow you to offer rewards in return for reviews, so don’t.
3. Make your website easy to enquire from
Small business websites tend to lose enquiries in the same places: a phone number that’s hard to find on a mobile, a contact form with too many fields, slow pages, and no proof such as reviews, photos of real work or a guide to prices. Fix those before you pay to send anyone to the site. Our post on website design principles for conversions covers the details.
4. SEO for the searches that lead to work
SEO takes months, but a page that ranks for “[your service] [your town]” or a specific product keeps bringing in enquiries without a cost per click. Start with one page per main service, written in the words customers search with, and make sure Google can read the site properly. If you’d rather hand it over, see our SEO services.
Get more from the customers you already have
Keeping a customer usually costs less than winning a new one, yet most small businesses do very little with their customer list.
5. Make referrals easy
Word of mouth brings in a lot of work for small businesses, but it mostly happens by chance. Make it deliberate. Ask satisfied customers whether they know anyone else who’d benefit, give them something easy to pass on (a link, a card, a short message they can forward), and thank everyone who refers someone. A simple reward, such as money off their next order or a donation to a local cause, suits many businesses.
6. Email your customers regularly
An email every month or so keeps you in mind for repeat work and referrals. Split your list where it helps (past customers, people who enquired but didn’t buy, trade customers) and send each group something relevant: a seasonal reminder, a new product, a useful tip. In the UK you need consent to send marketing emails to individuals. The exception is existing customers, if you gave them a chance to opt out when you collected their details and you’re telling them about similar products or services. Every email needs an easy way to unsubscribe.
7. Follow up every enquiry and quote
This is the cheapest lead generation there is. Reply to new enquiries quickly, within the hour if you can during working hours, and chase quotes that go quiet with a call or an email a few days later. Plenty of quotes are lost simply because nobody followed them up.
Pay to reach more people
Advertising makes sense once your profile and website turn visitors into enquiries. Until then, ads just send more people to the same leaky page.
8. Google Ads, when people search for what you sell
Google Ads puts you at the top of the results for searches you choose, and you pay when someone clicks. It suits businesses with clear search demand: trades, clinics, professional services and online shops. Start narrow, with a small set of closely matched searches, a defined area, a landing page for each service and conversion tracking from the first day. Our guide to PPC advertising explains how it works and what drives the cost.
9. Facebook and Instagram ads, when people don’t search for it
Meta’s ads work for things people buy when they see them rather than search for: products, food and drink, events, beauty, and home improvements with good before-and-after photos. Target by area and interests, use real photos and short videos, and give people one clear thing to do. Showing ads to people who have already visited your website is often a sensible first campaign. See our paid social service if you want help running them.
10. LinkedIn, for selling to other businesses
LinkedIn lets you target by job title, industry and company size, which suits B2B services where each client is worth a lot. Clicks tend to cost more than on Facebook or Instagram, so you need a strong reason for people to respond, such as a useful guide, an audit or a short call. For many B2B owners, posting regularly from their own profile brings in as much as paid ads.
11. Print, radio and outdoor, used carefully
Traditional advertising still earns its place in some situations: leaflets for a new local service, an advert in a village or parish magazine, a signwritten van, a banner at the local football ground. The problem is measuring it, so give each one its own offer code, phone number or web address (such as yourbusiness.co.uk/offer) and you’ll see what it brought in.
Build a reputation over time
12. Organic social media on one or two platforms
You don’t need to be on every platform. Pick the one your customers use, post consistently and show your work: before and after shots, behind the scenes, the people involved, answers to common questions. Reply to comments and messages quickly. Unpaid posts reach a limited share of your followers on most platforms, so use organic social to build trust with people who already know you and use ads when you need to reach new people.
13. Content that answers customers’ questions
Write down the questions people ask before they buy, then answer each one properly on your website: what it costs, how long it takes, what to look out for, how you compare with the alternatives. These pages help people decide, give you something to post and email, and can rank in Google. Good content is specific to your business; generic articles written to fill a blog rarely bring in work. If you sell your expertise and enjoy talking about it, a podcast can do the same job; see how to start a podcast for your business.
14. Local partnerships and networking
Other businesses that serve the same customers can send work your way: an estate agent and a removals firm, a wedding venue and a florist, an accountant and a solicitor. Networking groups and chambers of commerce suit B2B services. Sponsoring a local team or event works best when it comes with something people can act on, such as an offer for members. Local creators and community pages can do a similar job online, but check they have a real local following before you pay them.
Which ideas suit your business
A starting point by type of business. Your own customers and numbers should override it.
| Type of business | Start with | Add next | Leave until later |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local service (trades, clinics, salons) | Business Profile, reviews, Google Ads | Service pages for SEO, referrals | Print, influencers |
| Shop, café or restaurant | Business Profile, Instagram, local partnerships | Meta ads to a tight radius, email or a loyalty card | |
| Online shop | Product pages, site speed, email | Google Shopping, Meta ads | Print, networking |
| B2B service | Proof on the website, referrals, the owner’s LinkedIn profile | Content, Google Ads for high-intent searches | Organic Instagram or TikTok |
| New business with little budget | Business Profile, reviews, referrals, following up enquiries | Organic social, local partnerships | Paid ads until the website converts |
How much to spend on marketing
No single percentage of turnover suits every business. A more useful method is to work back from what a customer is worth to you.
Example: if an average job brings you £600 of profit and one in three enquiries turns into a job, each enquiry is worth about £200. Paying £50 for an enquiry through ads would be a good deal; paying £250 would lose you money. Run the same sums with your own figures.
Budget for time as well as money. If you’re doing it yourself, a few hours a week spread across two channels is realistic for most owners. If you’d rather hand it over, our pricing page shows what we charge: SEO and Google Ads management each start from £1,000 a month, with ad spend paid straight to Google. Whatever you spend, keep it steady for long enough to get a fair read before you change course.
How to tell what’s working
You need a handful of numbers, checked once a month.
| Number | How to get it | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Enquiries by source | Ask every new customer how they found you, and set up conversion tracking in GA4 | Which channels bring in work |
| Cost per enquiry | Spend on a channel divided by the enquiries it brought in | Whether a paid channel pays for itself |
| Conversion rates | Enquiries divided by website visits, and sales divided by enquiries | Where you lose people |
| Customer value | Average spend multiplied by how many times a customer buys from you | How much you can afford to pay to win a customer |
| Reviews and rating | Your Google Business Profile | Whether your reputation is moving in the right direction |
Where you can, use a separate phone number or tracking link for each campaign. Google Analytics, Google Search Console and the performance report in your Business Profile are free and cover most of this.
Common small business marketing mistakes
- Trying every channel at once, then dropping each one before it has had time to work.
- Boosting social posts with no clear audience or goal.
- Copying the brand campaigns of big companies. A small budget goes further on people who are ready to buy.
- Sending ad clicks to the homepage instead of a page about the service in the ad.
- Leaving the phone unanswered or enquiries unreplied for a day or two.
- Judging marketing on likes and followers instead of enquiries and sales.
Frequently asked questions
What is a small business marketing strategy?
A short plan that says who you want more customers from, why they should choose you, what you can spend, which two or three channels you’ll use first, and a goal with a date so you can tell whether it worked. It should fit on one page.
What is the best marketing for a small business?
For most small businesses: a complete Google Business Profile, a steady flow of reviews, a website that makes it easy to get in touch, and a habit of asking for referrals. Add paid advertising once those are working. The right mix depends mainly on whether your customers search for what you sell or buy it when they see it.
How much should a small business spend on marketing?
Work back from what a customer is worth. Take the profit from an average sale, multiply it by the share of enquiries that become sales, and you have what one enquiry is worth to you. Keep your cost per enquiry comfortably below that. Start with a modest budget, measure it, and put more into whatever brings enquiries at a cost you’re happy with.
What is the cheapest way to market a small business?
Completing your Google Business Profile, asking for reviews and referrals, following up every enquiry and quote, and emailing past customers cost little beyond your time. They also make any paid advertising you do later work harder.
What are the best advertising options for a small business?
Google Ads if people search for what you sell, Facebook and Instagram ads if people buy it when they see it, and LinkedIn if you sell to other businesses. Local print, radio and outdoor advertising can still work, as long as you give each one its own phone number, offer code or web address so you can see what it brings in.
How do I write a marketing plan for a small business?
Keep it to one page. Write down who your best customers are, why they should choose you, one measurable goal with a date, what you can spend in money and time, and the two or three channels you’ll use. Check progress monthly and change the channels that aren’t working.
Is Google or social media better for a small business?
If people search for what you do, Google (your Business Profile, SEO and Google Ads) usually brings enquiries sooner, because those people already want it. Social media suits products people buy on sight and helps build trust with people who already know you. Many small businesses use both, with Google first.
Founder of The Pursuit Agency in Swindon. He has worked in SEO for fifteen-odd years and leads the agency's SEO and Google Ads work for owner-led businesses across the UK.