Marketing Basics for Small Business Owners: Your 2026 Blueprint to Success
Marketing Basics for Small Business Owners written by someone who doesn’t want you to have to learn the hard way.
Marketing Basics for Small Business Owners: Your 2026 Blueprint to Success
Written by someone who doesn't want you to have to learn the hard way.
Often, when someone starts a business, they come to this wall where they realize they have to market their brand in order to make sales. "What on earth do I do next?" and "I'm not a marketing professional. I have no idea what I'm doing," thoughts send most business owners into a spiral. Take a breath. Grab your drink of choice (join me for coffee, if you will). Let's chat about marketing your small business with no jargon and no overwhelming directions. Just the truth about how to make your brand make you money in 2026.
Understanding Marketing for Small Businesses in 2026
Starting with the basics: Branding vs. Marketing (Yes, there's a difference)
They are commonly mistaken for one another, like when a mother just starts spewing off every kid's name besides the one she means.
Here's a simple breakdown. Branding is who you are. It's your business's values, the visual identity, that stunning logo suite you just invested in. It's your essence bottled up in colors, fonts, and a voice that sounds distinctly you. Branding is your uniqueness that makes your clients buy from you, specifically, and not the next person.
Marketing is the microphone, the invitation, the stage. It's how you tell people "Hello, I'm here and have something you need." It's how your brand gets in front of its audience. Marketing relies on your brand strategy to guide the campaigns and the systems it needs to work.
While marketing is your ongoing strategy that attracts clients and grows your business, your branding is the foundation that makes all of those marketing efforts recognizable and trustworthy.
Quick Guide:
Branding: Who you are (identity, values, visual system). Marketing: How you communicate (tactics, channels, campaigns)
Branding: Long-term and consistent. Marketing: Adaptable and responsive to trends
What Marketing Actually Means for Small Businesses
For small businesses, marketing is about efficiently reaching your ideal target audience through the right combination of digital and traditional channels. This can look like mixing social media and email campaigns with local advertising and SEO.
The beautiful truth? You don't need a massive budget; you just need strategic thinking and consistency.
AI for Small Business Marketing
In 2026, here's what you actually need to know: small businesses are embracing AI tools for content creation and social media management (with 56% already using AI), focusing on low-cost strategies like SEO, content marketing, and listings, and prioritizing authentic connections over viral moments.
With that being said, AI has been shown to be an effective tool in marketing for small businesses, but in order to create that authenticity needed to reach your audience, they need to reach YOU, not just the AI-generated marketing. Think of AI as everyone throwing their two cents into a bucket and the AI bots take the average opinion. It's not the best work, it's the okay-est work.
Here is the rule of thumb I use for including AI in my marketing: AI is a research tool, I am the creator. Relying 100% on AI is like settling for the middle ground: you will blend in with everyone else because that's where AI gets its information. You need to shine, and that will involve creativity.
The Essential Marketing Channels for Your Small Business
Now, let's get into the pieces you will need to actually market your business. I have created quick references for the top methods that you should keep in mind for all of your marketing campaigns.
Social Media Marketing (Organic & Paid)
Let's start with the most commonly used tactic in 2025 (and presumably 2026).
Organic Social Media: Your Daily Conversations
Organic social media remains one of the best marketing avenues for small businesses. However, they don't make it easy. Success requires platform-specific strategies and consistent engagement.
Here are the best practices for utilizing organic social media:
Platform Selection:
Facebook: Ideal for local businesses and community engagement with versatile posting formats
Instagram: Perfect for visual content, product showcases, and behind-the-scenes (BTS) Stories
LinkedIn: Best for Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing, thought leadership, and professional networking
TikTok: Mainly for younger audiences with simple, creative, and entertaining short-form content
Content Strategy:
Focusing on short-form content (around 15-60 seconds) performs better in 2025 and going into 2026
Encourage and embrace user-generated content (UGC), such as customers tagging your business in their posts
If available, use livestreams for real-time customer engagement and community building
Repurpose content across platforms to save time and costs
Recommended Resources:
There are a number of tools available for managing your social media accounts. You don't need to create content daily; you can batch create (which is recommended) and schedule your posts to go out later.
Using a social planner, like The CEO Lounge or a subscription-based one like Later, are popular options for staying organized.
Meta Business Suite is used only for managing Facebook and Instagram, and can be used to schedule both organic and paid socials (which we'll get into later).
CapCut is popular for video editing; however, you can use the native video editing tools (Instagram Edit, for example).
Paid Social Media Advertising: The Boost Your Content Might Need
Paid social media has evaded many small business owners. Often, it can be seen as an annoyance or overly confusing. Only 40% of small businesses invest in paid social ads. However, over half plan on increasing their investments because these platforms are often where they can reach their ideal customers.
Here's how I would suggest easing into paid social ads:
Start with a small budget ($5-10 per day) and test your ad
Use targeted demographics to reach your ideal clients
Leverage shoppable posts and live-streaming selling for direct sales and connections
Retarget website visitors who didn't convert
Retargeting means sending a post to someone who was already interested in your product or service, but didn't commit yet. They might have looked through your socials, through your website, and gotten all the way to the checkout page, but didn't hit "submit order." So, you know they are already interested in your product, and therefore, more likely to buy.
Recommended Resources:
Often, for social ads, you need to use the native ad management tool for that platform: Meta Ads Manager for creating Facebook or Instagram ads, TikTok Ads Manager for TikTok advertising, and LinkedIn Campaign Manager for B2B ads.
The Complete Guide for Social Media Post Types
Great, okay, now you know organic vs. paid, but understanding the different types of posts you can post is confusing? No worries, I made a list of the 13 I think you should remember.
No. 1. Static Image Posts: A single image with a caption. The OG social post.
Best for: Showcasing your finished work, announcements, quotes, and BTS photos.
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter/X
No. 2. Carousel Posts: Multiple images or graphics (up to 10) that people swipe through in one post.
Best for: Step-by-step tutorials, storytelling, before/after transformations, showcasing collections of products, and educational content.
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn
Pro tip: The first image should have the hook, so the audience doesn't scroll by it.
No. 3. Video Posts: Traditional longer-form video content posted on your feed (so NOT Stories or Reels)
Best for: Testimonials, longer tutorials, product demos, and vlogs
Platforms: Instagram (up to 60 minutes), Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Note: These are not very popular, but still work for specific content.
No. 4. Reels (Short-Form Videos)
Vertical, short videos (15-90 seconds) designed to be entertaining, engaging, and shareable. The algorithm loves these.
Best for: Quick tips, entertaining content, showing personality, reaching new audiences, and storytelling.
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube Shorts
Pro tip: Short-form content is still the best performing in 2025, with most social media algorithms pushing quick, engaging clips.
No. 5. Stories: Temporary Content (24-hour Shelf-Life) shown at the top of the app
Best for: Daily updates, selling, questions, BTS, quick announcements, and driving urgency.
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok
Pro tip: Using polls, questions, quizzes, links, etc., helps drive customer interactions and interest.
No. 6. Live Videos (Livestreams)
This is engaging with your clients by broadcasting a live video feed where viewers can watch and interact.
Best for: Q&A, live sales, workshops, BTS, and real-time community building
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn
Note: Some platforms have special requirements in order for your account to do livestreams.
No. 7. Shoppable Posts: Static, Carousel, or Video posts with a clickable product tag that let people buy directly
Best for: E-commerce, product launches, and showcasing your merchandise
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest
Note: This is primarily for physical goods, not services.
No. 8. Link Posts: Posts that include a clickable link (usually shows a preview card with an image and a headline)
Best for: Driving traffic to blog posts and articles, landing pages, and new website pages
Platforms: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter/X
Note: Instagram does not allow clickable links in feed posts. Only in Stories, bios, and if you're verified.
No. 9. Text-only Posts: Just words. No images or videos.
Best for: Thought leadership, hot takes, sharing conversations, and storytelling.
Platforms: LinkedIn (very popular), Twitter/X, and Facebook
No. 10. Poll Posts: Ask a question and the audience gets to vote
Best for: Engagement, getting feedback, and understanding your audience
Platforms: Instagram Stories, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, and Facebook
No. 11. User-Generated Content (UGC) Posts: Content created by your customers/followers that you reshare (with permission, of course).
Best for: Social proof, building community, and showing real results
Platforms: All of them.
No. 12. Pinned Posts: Where you "pin" a post to the top of your profile
Best for: Important announcements, current promotions, your best work, and introductions
Platforms: Instagram (up to 3), Facebook, Twitter/X, and TikTok
No. 13. Announcement Posts
Best for: New services, events, milestones, and important business updates
Platforms: All of them.
Quick Reference: What to Post When
Want engagement? → Polls, questions, carousel posts, and relatable memes
Want reach? → Reels, trending content, and collaborative posts
Want sales? → Shoppable posts, Stories with links, and testimonials
Want authority? → Educational carousels, text posts with insights, and guides
Want connection? → Stories, behind-the-scenes, photo dumps, and Lives
Make sure to mix it up. You want to keep your audience's attention.
Email Marketing Best Practices:
Email marketing seems tedious, but it is the best way to reach your audience directly, without having to play the algorithms' games. I'm not an email genius, but I know a good one. Jessie Cunniffe, Email Copywriting Coach at Jessie Cunniffe Co., was kind enough to give you some email marketing tips to make your emails effective.
Here's what she writes:
"Growing Your List
First things first, subscribers must legally consent to being emailed by you—so now is not the time to randomly import your entire contact list and start sending them emails unannounced. This is the quickest way to wreck your reputation and your deliverability in one fell swoop.
Instead, offer people something valuable for free. The only cost? Their email address (it's a good idea to include a checkbox confirming that they're signing up to receive marketing emails and can unsubscribe at any time).
Create a Welcome Sequence
Once you've got people joining your list, it's time to show them it's worth their while to stay subscribed. A 3-5 email welcome sequence that introduces you, what you do, and offers them something to buy is a good way to warm people up. When your list is big enough, you'll be paying for every subscriber, so see this as a good opportunity to weed out the freebie-seekers and unaligned sign-ups sooner rather than later.
On that note, make sure that you have a one-click unsubscribe button at the bottom of every email—this is a legal requirement in many countries and helps stop you from getting marked as spam instead.
Train Your Audience To Buy
The wonderful thing about email is that people are far more ready to buy from their inboxes than from social media—because on the latter, they're in an "entertain me" mindset. But people check their emails for discounts, deals, and new products that excite them. This is why email marketing still has the highest ROI of any digital marketing channel.
So make the most of it! Sell often and sell confidently—this is best paired with personal stories and educational snippets to establish your authority and create connection with your audience."
Jessie teaches you all of these tricks, and so much more through her coaching. If you want more info on email marketing, enroll in her email marketing course here. Your future self will thank you.
You can also follow Jessie on Instagram for more email marketing tips.
Print Media & Traditional Marketing
Though seen as "old-fashioned," don't sleep on tangible marketing bits. Especially in our overly digital world, print materials stand out and create memorable brand experiences.
Here are the most effective print marketing pieces:
Business cards for networking. Though annoying to carry around, you should always have them.
Postcards for direct mail campaigns (right to your clients' PO boxes)
Flyers for events and community boards
Brochures or tri-folds for a more detailed explanation of your products
Booklets for really in-depth explanations of your products
In order for print materials to be truly effective, you need to maintain your brand consistency with your digital presence. They need to be able to connect the dots back to you, no matter where they find you. You can also connect your print to your digital presence by utilizing QR codes (scannable graphics that link back to a URL).
When you are creating print materials, you need to think of the actual materials. Investing in quality paper and printing will make the difference between looking sloppy and looking professional. Instead of "you are what you eat," it's "you are what you give." If you give quality, you look quality. If you give sub-par, you look sub-par.
Though it seems like it, print media doesn't have to mean absolute chaos when it comes to tracking its effectiveness. Unlike with digital ads and social ads, there's no code on a flyer to know if that flyer brought in a sale. However, there are ways to connect your sales to the print items that might have brought them in. Using unique discount codes, QR codes, or even phrasing can tell you which printed marketing piece brought in which sale. It just takes an extra few steps when planning.
Recommended Resources:
Moo for premium business cards
Vistaprint for affordable bulk printing
Local print shops for personalized service and sustainability
Branded Merchandise: The Walking Billboards
Though it might be called something simple, like "swag," merch is a marketing strategy. It turns your clients into walking billboards that will take your business into places you couldn't normally reach. Merch grabs people's attention by placing your logo or designs directly in front of your audience without you having to be there.
The main trick to merchandise is picking items that your clients actually want and use: tote bags, apparel, drinking vessels, stickers, etc. The idea is to have your branding on something that your clients are going to take with them and show off to their friends, family, and the barista making their coffee.
Along that line, you want to keep the brand consistency, just as you would with anything else. If they can't tie the merch design back to you, there's no point in wasting money on it. That's why you don't see Dunkin' Donuts' logos on workout equipment.
Using merch as a loyalty reward or a purchase incentive is a sneaky way to get your clients to carry around your advertising for you. It's a tactic that has been used forever and still remains super popular in today's market. Next time you're out shopping, especially around the holidays, look and see how many "free gift with purchase" items have the company's branding on them.
Merch can also be an additional revenue stream. In order for this to be effective, you need to focus on high-quality merch that people will actually want to spend their money on. The price should make sense for that product, even if your branding wasn't on it. Sometimes, big brands can get away with putting a ridiculous price tag on their merch, but that takes years of brand equity. Start small.
Recommended Resources:
Printful or Printify for print-on-demand with no inventory. Check the quality of the items before you send them out. Print-on-demand shops have their own levels of quality that they maintain, so make sure it matches up to your brand.
Custom Ink for apparel or promotional products
4imprint for common merch items
Web Design: Your Digital Storefront
Your website is your worldwide storefront. It requires careful planning, optimization, and regular maintenance to maintain. Web design is a whole other realm that we can get into, but for the sake of not rambling, here are the key points you need to keep in mind with your website:
Fast loading times (under 3 seconds) are essential.
Compress your images down to 200KB or less. You can use TinyPNG for this, for free.
Google measures website performance through Core Web Vitals like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and First Input Delay (FID).
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): "How fast does the important stuff show up?"
First Input Delay (FID): "When I click a button, does it respond immediately or lag?"
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): "Does stuff jump around while loading?"
Keep your website layout clean and well-organized
Most traffic now comes from users' phones. Your website needs to be mobile-friendly.
Your navigation should be clean with a strong call-to-action.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) needs to be optimized so you show up on Google. Don't skip this. If it's not something you're comfortable with, hire a professional.
Your website design needs to be accessible to all users. Don't use colors or layouts that hinder someone with visual impairments from being able to use your website.
This is one of the main reasons I always include an accessibility rating for all of my brand designs. If you don't take them into consideration, you are saying goodbye to a whole demographic of buyers.
You need to have the integrations working well so your clients can book calls, purchase items, and download resources easily. Don't make them jump around from place to place. You'll lose them.
Content Layout Requirements:
Homepage with clear value proposition
About page that tells your story
Service/Product page
Contact page with multiple options
Blog for content marketing and SEO
Recommended Resources:
Framer for design-forward, no coding required
Ivorey.io site page (my personal recommendation)
Squarespace for templated sites
Shopify for e-commerce focus
Link in Bio Page
With social platforms come limited links. The link in bio is a way to have one link that connects to many links without having to send someone to a whole website. It's a simple, digital menu that allows the user to choose from a selection of focused links.
You should use the link in bio for these main items (not just for everything under the sun):
Highlighting current promotions and launches
Website booking page
Sales pages
Blog posts
Contact form
Your link in bio should be updated regularly and should reflect your current priorities. Make sure you don't have old sales still linked on there. Make sure it is clean and branded to align with the rest of your marketing materials.
Recommended Resources:
Your native website builder. This is easier to maintain with your website.
Linktree for simplicity and analytics
Stan Store for selling digital products
Ivorey.io for all of the above
Summary
Marketing your small business can be incredibly intimidating, especially if you're new to the game. Creating a strong brand is the first step. A clear strategy will make the difference between looking like the professional who knows what they're doing and the unconfident business owner. Your brand strategy should tell you how to look, how to speak, and show off the value you bring to the table. It's your flashlight in the dark.
If you are out there without a strong brand backing you up and you want to change, make more money, and stop wasting your time, it's time to invest in your brand. No matter where you're at with your business journey, it's never too late to do better.
Book a call today with our strategist and start your professional brand today.
