7 marketing tips for sole traders

Marketing and promoting your sole trader business is an essential part of running your own business, regardless of the industry you work in, the location you serve, or the type of products and services your business sells.

When precisely planned and deftly executed with creativity, a strategic marketing plan can be the difference between struggle street and the high street for your sole trader business.

Sole traders may not think they need marketing – assuming that as a sole trader their business isn’t large enough to warrant a presumedly costly investment in marketing. But that would be a mistake, because just like other essential requirements, such as sole trader insurance, marketing is essential for every business.

Every business can achieve organic growth of its own volition to a point, but sustained business growth requires investment in marketing activities.

1. A sole trader marketing guide

Once you’ve accepted that your ongoing sole trader success will require a marketing push, all that’s left to do is sketch out your marketing plan and get cracking on rolling it out. Here are our top tips for sole trader success with marketing. If you’re wondering how to start a sole trader business and grow it, investing in these strategic marketing activities will position your business for long-term success.

One thing to note – you can produce your marketing assets yourself, which will take time but save you money, or you can outsource production to a full-service marketing agency. If outsourcing, sole traders can avoid costly fees by working with a smaller, suburban-based marketing agency, rather than a flashy agency at the top end of town. You may be surprised by the difference in fees.

2. Max out your company website

Don’t underestimate the power and potential of a fantastic company website. We’ve all seen company websites done well and company websites done not so well, and the difference is day and night.

Your website will most likely be the first point of interaction your sole trader business has with potential customers, meaning it has a very important job to do. It must engage, inform, and arouse interest in visitors, and it must do it quickly. Does your current company website offer a good first impression?

3. Establish a social media presence

As a sole trader, you certainly don’t need to commit great portions of your time and marketing budget to social media marketing. But in this day and age having at least some presence on social media for your business is recommended. Focus on LinkedIn and Facebook/Instagram.

4. SEO

When it comes to marketing, any advice around how to start a sole trader business needs to include search engine optimisation, or SEO. SEO is a great way to increase the visibility and reach of your website. SEO is an essential, modern digital marketing tactic that makes it easier for the right audience to find their way to your sole trader company website.

Using strategically chosen key words in a specific way in the copy on your company website can help your business rank higher in search engine search results. And this is more important than you may think – because ranking on the first page of search engine results is worth its weight in gold in terms of the number of visitors coming to your company website.

5. Identify public relations opportunities

Every business, including sole traders, will have a newsworthy story to tell at some point. Has your sole trader business landed a major contract or client? Have you been nominated for a local business award? Have you introduced an innovative new product or service?

These are all prime opportunities to promote your business using targeted public relations. Because if you don’t talk about your big wins as a sole trader, no-one else will.

6. Get blogging

Blogging is a great strategy for increasing traffic to your sole trader company website. It gives your business credibility and enables you to position yourself as an engaging thought leader in your industry. And best of all, writing and publishing one blog a week is not a massive investment of your time.

Aim for at least 600 words per blog, if possible. And include newly published blogs in email communications to your customer database. Blogging is one of the top marketing tips for sole trader success.

7. Video

Any sole trader marketing guide wouldn’t be complete without mentioning video. Video isn’t the cheapest type of content to produce – although it’s no longer as costly as it once was – but it is a gold mine for driving consumer engagement with your brand. After all, 54% of consumers* want to see more video content from a brand or business they support.

Simply put, your audience is more likely to watch a video than read a long piece of written content. So, if you have the budget, video is a wise marketing investment for your sole trader business.

By following these sole trader marketing guide steps, you will equip your sole trader business with an arsenal of marketing tools to help it grow.

While you’re busy building your sole trader business, let us lighten the load by handling your business insurance*. We make sole trader business insurance a piece of cake – because it needn’t be a chore. Go online for your business insurance or give us a call 1300 920 864 to see how we can help protect your sole trading business.