9 Ways You Can Market Your Business In 20 Minutes Or Less

Marketing your business requires time. Period. And more importantly, it’s essential for your continued growth, even when you don’t see immediate results.

Marketing your business doesn’t have to be hard, though. You can level up financially in short bursts of time by making a few tweaks to your marketing strategy. Here are nine things you can do in 20 minutes or less to market your business and move the needle.

1. Optimize Your Social Media Profiles

You already know the power of social media marketing, but do you know what a few changes to your profile can do? For all of your social media profiles, you’re going to want to:

Use The Right Keywords

There is no social media platform — whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, or TikTok (cue dramatic gasp, “don’t make me Snap or Tiktok”) — that doesn’t use keywords in some form. When you write up a description for your profile for any of these, ensure you include words someone might type in to find a business like yours. (Need to know what to use? Type a few ideas into Google and see what it comes up with!)

Keep It Short And Focused

Most social profiles don’t allow you many characters in your social media profile to begin with, and it’s to your benefit considering our extremely short attention spans. It’s all the more reason to specify exactly what you do and why you’re different.

Adopt The “I/We help” Technique

Say who you help, touch on at least one difficulty you know your audience is facing, and introduce your solution. For example, “We help small businesses get the right leads with winning funnels.” Next level tip: Focusing on the transformation your clients will get strengthens your “we help “ game.

2. Ask Past Clients For Reviews

As long as you have past or existing clients, you have a HUGE marketing tool in your arsenal. Trust me, you’ll be ahead of any competitors who haven’t pulled out this one.

Reviews from past clients build trust with potential new ones. When your market trusts you, they’ll more easily hand over that dough.

Existing clients can also play this role. Generally, you should wait until your project wraps up before requesting a review. Don’t make the client feel rushed, but do give them a loose deadline. Keep it short, clarify the means to write up the review, and ask nicely! Or, door #2 is to ask them a few questions about their experience and offer to write it for them!

3. Use Paid Ads On Google, Facebook, Or Instagram

No longer are paid ads a science. Anyone can jump on Instagram and dish out $10 to get their ads in your feed… and without even going on the platform thanks to Facebook! Paid ads will never quite beat organic traffic — debatable, I know — but they can give you a quick boost especially if you have a specific short-term goal.

When you market your business using paid ads, be sure to:

• Identify and direct the ad to your specific target market.
• Test your results at set intervals and pivot as necessary.
• Use long-tail keywords for Google Search ads.
• Don’t be afraid to use emojis.
• Keep it short.

And, if you need a recommendation for a paid ads expert, just ask. I know a gal!

4. Collaborate/ Network With Others In The Same Or A Similar Industry

A friend in your industry is a potential referral. Networking, like glowing reviews, is still one of the best ways to place your business in front of a potential customer. So put yourself out there, get to know the gang, and watch them send new clients your way. Easy!

5. Revamp Your Content Strategy

If you don’t already have a basic content strategy, get one. Now. There IS no marketing without content. Good. Now I’ll give you some best practices for upping your content strategy game in the form of a few small snacks:

• Use consumer-generated content. See number 2 above.
• Be consistent. It’s the key. Always.
• Have a blog. That is all.
• Practice guest blogging and link back to your site.
• Use basic SEO techniques.
• Social media counts.

Whatever you choose, do it consistently. Once a month is better than 5 days in a row and then nothing for months.

6. Share Your Expertise In New Ways

How do you market your business without marketing yourself? Ok, you can do that. Fine.

Nowadays people are looking for a face to go with a product or service. They want to see who’s telling them about these amazing features and benefits — and see proof you know your stuff.

Here are a few modern ways to put yourself and your business out there and draw people to you:

1. Be a guest on a podcast or YouTube series relating to your industry or niche.

2. Join Clubhouse! Get an invite if you haven’t already and start co-hosting rooms. (fun fact — I don’t have an apple product so I’m feeling left out!)

3. Go old school — Join in discussions on online forums like Reddit or comment underneath blogs.

For all of these, you want to share value to your audience above all else. It’s a give-to-get situation. Once people feel you can make a difference in their lives, they’ll be inclined to take that next step with none other than the expert — YOU!

7. Up Your Video Marketing

Haven’t you heard? Video is all the rage for marketing your business online. We humans… we like the things that move. Join YouTube, do Instagram Lives and IGTV episodes, and use videos on LinkedIn. Video is the magic ingredient to market your business in our era. However, you must use it wisely. Here’s how:

• Keep the quality top-notch. No grainy images. No broken sound.
• Stay focused on the topic that people expect you to talk about.
• Be real and not scripted. Remember, people are reading your body language, too.
• Make sure it’s customized to the platform you’re on. LinkedIn = more professional.
• Find your confidence. People won’t listen to you if you show your nagging self-doubt.

8. Offer A Freebie

Want to boost traffic to your website, get more followers on social media, AND increase your email list? EASY! Just dish out a freebie and you’re on your way to all of these… based on your strategy, of course.

Freebies are most often used to gain email subscribers. People have to give you their email to receive the freebie in return. Oh, look… another give-to-get. Ideally, you want to send them to a landing page that consists of NOTHING BUT a short blurb about what they’re getting and a text box to enter their email.

“Send me my freebie!” … they then click.

Once they do that, you can send them off to another part of your site. After all, you just give them some goodies, they might want something more!

Some freebies you can offer are a checklist, an eBook, a short course or webinar training, a course sent to their email, a worksheet, an informational audio recording, or one of those irresistible quizzes centered around their needs… and your business.

(Want my latest freebie? Build a better CTA with this checklist!)

9. Run A Giveaway

My final tip to market your business successfully is another give-to-get. Giveaways are an exceptionally rewarding marketing technique that gets your name out there. You can do it with others in your industry and have their audience gravitate to you.

Or, you can do it all alone. You’ll still get the rewards. Just keep in mind a few things:

• List all the rules clearly.
• Define the period the giveaway runs.
• Include all the necessary disclaimers.
• State clearly when and how the winner will be announced.

Get More Help

I’ve given you a few easy ways to market your business. Each of these can be done in little to no time — granted you don’t overthink it. If you could use some help putting these tips into action or connecting them to the bigger picture, I’d love to help!