5 Tips for Small Businesses to Increase Exposure

One of the biggest hurdles small businesses must overcome is finding and increasing exposure. Whatever market you are situated in, there is likely a considerable amount of competition to deal with. Therefore, dealing with exposure is by no means easy and rarely straightforward. Fortunately, if they understand their brand and their market, there are effective ways for small businesses to increase exposure. For this article, we've picked five that we feel every small business manager should be aware of.

Ways for small businesses to increase exposure

The last thing small businesses should do to increase exposure is to try and mimic large brands. Yes, there is a lot to learn from their approach to marketing, branding, and exposure management. But, as a small and hopefully growing business, you can hardly hope to gain the same results as a large company by simply mimicking their efforts. Instead, you need zero in on a specific market and see that your brand is well-featured.

Focus on the unique selling point

To raise brand awareness, you need to give your audience a clear reason why they ought to pay attention to your company. Be it a product, a service, or a story behind your brand. You are looking for a unique selling point (USP) that you can push to your audience. The better you outline your USP, the easier it will be to develop your marketing around it. Small businesses that successfully utilize their USP usually see a decent increase in customer numbers. Before long, the product/service gets associated with the small business.

Socialize with the target audience

Another way for small businesses to increase exposure is to socialize with their target audience. Too often, we see small businesses that tackle marketing the old-fashioned way. They create marketing content, set up a website, and hope for the best. While this may generate some brand awareness, it won't be as effective as expected. What you should instead do is socialize with your target audience.

Remember that the whole point of social media platforms is for people to be social. Therefore, make full use of that. Use your profile to develop a line of communication with your audience. Comment on relevant posts and regularly respond to customers' posts and messages. You can also use emails to address more personal messages and address both email marketing and customer concerns. That is one of the best ways for small businesses to increase exposure, as it naturally shows that you care about your customers and value their opinion.

Build partnerships

There are plenty of instances where one small business naturally connects to one in a different industry. For example, small bars naturally connect to beer producers. Moving companies naturally connect to storage companies. Plumbers naturally connect to electricians, etc. Therefore, if you wish to gain extra exposure, you ought to find a decent business to partner up with. You will naturally grow your customer base if you recommend each other to your customers.

The main thing to watch out for is who you partner yourself with. You will see terrific results if you associate yourself with someone with a good reputation and who does business well. But, if you tie yourself to a subpar company, your brand and reputation will suffer. So, be very careful and do ample research before you choose to partner up with someone.

Create events

Small businesses run into a big problem: how to break the ice and get that initial exposure. While you can choose to slowly build up your brand awareness, you might want to start your marketing with a bang. After all, around 20% of startup businesses fail within the first year. So, you should make your business profitable as soon as possible.

Hosting events is a great way to gain exposure, especially with local clientele. One-time events will help people become aware of you and start considering you. Regular events will become a part of your brand and people's awareness of it. So, if you believe it is profitable, consider having events regularly.

Talk with your team

The last tip we have for you is to consult with your team. More often than not, your employees and coworkers will have a good idea of how to increase exposure. While not all of them might be profitable, they will give you a decent hint of how to consider your brand and what new approaches you can adopt.

Understand the process of business growth

Before applying any of our increasing exposure methods, we advise you to set clear analytics parameters. Doing so will determine whether your efforts are effective and whether you ought to make certain alterations.

It is also worthwhile to remember that the timing of your efforts is just as important as the execution. With events, partnerships, and social media, you must find the right timing to engage your audience. You need to keep track of your business and pick a suitable time for new endeavors. If, for instance, you are moving office, you need to consider the timing of your move and organize events accordingly. Similarly, you need to understand the prevalent trends in your market to engage it properly. If you catch the right wave, you can ride it out and see great results with a relatively modest investment.

Final thoughts

While there are other ways for small businesses to increase exposure, we feel the ones listed should get you on the right track. As you can imagine, there is no surefire way that all businesses can use to build exposure. Instead, you need to understand how customers perceive your business and use that knowledge to grow your online presence. Don't stop researching and coming up with long-term strategies for brand awareness.

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