There’s a great deal to be said for limitation. We see this in the creative space, where artists (such as filmmakers) tend to create better, more considered projects and works if they have a limited budget to deal with. All of a sudden every dollar, pound, euro or other token of currency counts, and is used to the best of its ability. When an artist has all the resources they could ever want at their hands, that’s when they tend to become less disciplined than they should be.
This also goes for the world of business. It’s easy to see some companies rest on their laurels instead of constantly innovating when reaching the top of the field, which is why Apple has been plagued with accusations of overpricing and limited iteration from iPhone model to iPhone model in the last five years.
But from limitation, are there ways to also extend your reach further than it might go? In this way, you can use your scrappy, competitive attitude to potentially compete against larger forces in your market, without giving up the limitation that makes you special. Let’s consider how you might do that with some small company marketing tips:
The Power Of Guerrilla Marketing
When you’re a small fish in a big pond, you’ve got to make some waves to get noticed. That’s where guerilla marketing comes in. In other words, outsmarting the competition can help you get noticed, and as you have less of a reputation, making one can have more impact.
But be mindful of how you do it. A viral clip can certainly get people talking about your brand for a fraction of the cost of a traditional ad campaign, but sometimes a quick flash in the pan that pigeonholes you as one “moment” can sometimes be an issue. This is especially true if you use somewhat controversial tactics as has been seen before.
But you can certainly drip-feed mystique about your brand before you tell people what it is, such as putting up a mystifying billboard in your local area or using a QR code leaflet campaign to get people excited. You have little to lose when just starting out, so experimenting and making use of word of mouth can be a great way to start.
Using Flexibility To Your Advantage
What does a small local farm shop have against a supermarket? Flexibility. There’s where being small can be a real advantage. More widely, perhaps your business notices a trend emerging in your industry that you can make use of.
Your small company marketing might involve using AI to curate your customer support from the bottom up, responding to local events and activities more quickly, or even helping out in the event of a community difficulty, you’ll be able to place your human foot first and make a difference for it. Using this flexibility while you can is key because it’s a luxury no business that has eyes to expand can really hold onto forever.
Outsourcing Where You Can
Just because you’re small doesn’t mean you have to do everything yourself or that one person has to be the all-seeing, all-dancing generator of productivity. In fact, smart outsourcing can help you in more ways than one, even in systemic ways that help you stand on the shoulders of giants, so to speak.
For example, perhaps you can’t afford a full-time IT department, but you can afford to outsource your tech support to a specialized firm or managed IT service that offers a modular amount of services to set at your will. Or perhaps you can’t really fulfill your order volume yourself, but with a service such as 3PL you’ll be able to do so night and day with a near-perfect accuracy rating. That in itself can help your little firm stand firmly, provided you balance the costs associated with each sale. An accountant can help you with that too. If you can, focus as much as possible on your core competencies and outsource the rest.
Scaling Up & Down At Will
Not every business is built to perfectly scale, so curating yours to do so can be very helpful, especially if you’re a small business that may go through periods of excess and limitation depending on demand or seasonal shifts. If you start small and then expand quickly, but your general structure can’t keep up, you’ll be stuck scrambling to fill gaps in coverage.
Think about your needs today and where you expect to be in the next few years. If you’re outsourcing customer support, for example, can they handle double the volume in the future if your client base grows? If you scale down, can you outsource certain functions or even streamline departments neatly? If you do this, then you’ll always have an advantage over companies that haven’t organized themselves this way, and you’ll add to your survivability too.
With this advice, we hope your small company marketing efforts can improv the reach and capabilities of your humble business.
