5 Effective Small Business Marketing Strategies You Need for 2022

In their November 3rd issue, Forbes magazine published a report from The Conference Board, which gave their predictions for 2022 economic growth. Global supply chain issues, labor challenges, COVID-19, which won’t go away, and inflation resulting from the previously mentioned threats are expected to continue challenging businesses. Therefore, it is essential to refine your small business marketing strategies and find what’s most effective to help limit the potential adverse business impact. 

It very well might be that in 2022 whoever has the more creative solutions for their customers’ needs will win the business. So, with 2022 just weeks away, consider these small business marketing strategies to help position you for success in 2022. 

5 Small Business Marketing Strategies 

Communicate with Customers & Prospects (or find someone to do it for you) 

Given the supply chain challenges, you’re already looking to secure alternate sources for raw materials and services you need to keep your business running. You already know that not many customers are willing to wait 4-6 months for something, especially if your competitor can fulfill their order in half the time.  

On the other hand, if you are all in the same boat (probably anchored somewhere outside of a harbor on the west coast), then perhaps you’ll need to find an alternate solution to meet your customer’s needs.  

If you have inventory readily available or a service that your company can immediately deploy…let people know! 

• Take to social media to spread the word 
• Consider a making short clip for TikTok 

• Promote your availability of products and services in an email newsletter 
• Create a series of emails featuring your product/service and send them weekly to your email list (heather, do we have a communication opt in form? If so, can we link it to the ‘email list’ text above?) 

The point is, you need to communicate with customers and prospects. Let them know it’s business as usual, and you’re available and ready to support them.   

Outsourcing Communication 

Some small businesses do not want to focus their efforts on marketing or may not have the tools needed to communicate effectively with their customer base, let alone get the attention of prospects. Whatever the case, it’s ok! 

Look for a 3rd party to help with marketing and communication efforts on your behalf. There are many advantages of focusing on your key objectives and letting someone else help support the peripheral activities. 

 
Contact Centers, BPO’s, and Call Centers 

Many contact centers have evolved into what’s known as Business Process Outsourcing, or BPO, and support businesses for multiple functions like customer service, tech support, marketing, sales, and much more.   

One of the many benefits of a BPO, contact center, or call center (people are known to use these terms interchangeably) is this: rather than hire someone at an inflated labor rate to do one function, and a BPO can do it all for you.  

BPO’s attract, hire, and train employees for your business, more often than not, at a reduced cost. It’s one of the many small business marketing strategies that succeeds time and time again.  

Addressing Labor Challenges  

The labor issues everyone is facing are the staggering number of employees opting out of the workforce and how to find the right people for your business at a price you can afford.   

An effective small business marketing strategy to consider is not hiring internally to support services that are not considered your core business. 

Crazy? Let me explain.  

The right BPO has access to the best talent. With the transition to work from home models, there aren’t typically geographical limitations for hiring. Outsourcing to a BPO also allows business owners to find highly skilled workers in specific areas where needed. Therefore, it won’t likely come with an inflated premium as your local labor market.  

Reducing Costs with a Shared Model 

It’s a fact that outsourcing reduces business costs. Here’s an example. 

You have three employees responsible for handling customer service phone calls. Even though they aren’t each busy with calls 8 hours during the day, you need to have a bit of a buffer when calls overlap. In this scenario, your payroll cost for this position is 24 hours daily. Of course, that’s just their salary, but what about the overhead?  

BPO’s offer several different pricing models. Overhead is part of the inclusive cost. 

One example is a shared model is where you don’t have an entire dedicated front-line team for your business. Instead, a shared model allows sharing resources with other BPO clients.  

In this case, you may find that you pay for the actual time the customer service agents are active for your business. You pay for the time the BPO resources are actively supporting your business.  

There is also a per minute vs. per hourly rate consideration. But, again, you might be surprised at the cost analysis because of the net cost of labor per hour instead of a call center charging a per minute or per hour rate.  

Supporting Your Sales Team 

Then you can never ignore the fact that despite all the supply line issues and price increases, you still need to sell. Selling means reaching customers and prospects, and maybe your sales team can’t do it all. Get them help. 

Keep your sales team focused on existing customers staying happy and closing business with new products and services. Use a proven and successful BPO to do the time-consuming and tedious activities that challenge your sales team, like lead generation and appointment setting.  

Telepromm is a full-service BPO contact center. We’re here to support your business and help you be successful through 2022 and beyond.