18 Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses Selling Online

Looking for some truly awesome marketing ideas for selling online?

Whether you sell on Etsy, on Amazon, on Shopify or somewhere else online, these marketing ideas are from my 12-Month Marketing Strategy Plans for Online Shops.

These detailed downloads are super easy to follow and will help you drive more traffic (and sales) to your online store.

18 Marketing Ideas for Selling Online

Highlight any publicity your business has received with an icon or shoutout on your store page banner. For example, “As featured in this month’s issue of…”
Ask a local photography class to take highly stylized, creative photos of your products as a class project. As a result, you get free high quality product photos to use.
Create a gift card for your store and promote it on your home page and at the end of every product listing.
Add text fly-outs to your product photos that highlight special features or a target customer that would benefit from this feature. See this post for examples.
Get a free Square.com reader for your smart phone, so you can sell your products by credit card anywhere, anytime (out of the trunk of your car, if need be). You also get your products featured in Square’s online shop for free.
Apply to have your products included in monthly subscription boxes to get in front of potential new customers. It can be sample sizes or even a coupon.
Instead of always going after the end user, try to also target potential business users for your products such as restaurants, small hotels, fashion stylists, interior decorators, daycare centers, dog groomers, event planners, AirBnBs, and so forth.
Post something nice about a prominent brand company to your social media sites and tag them on it and they will likely repost it to their social media sites (so your business now gets seen by their followers).
Change or add your shop categories depending on the time of year, and make them as detailed as possible to really attract interest.. For example, Valentine’s Gift Ideas for Kids, Beautiful Holiday Decorating Ideas, New Fashion Jewelry for Fall 2022, etc.
Put your shop logo and url on your smart phone case, lap top, lap top bag, coffee travel cup, yoga mat and anywhere else other people will see it as you travel throughout your day.
Create a free list or checklist that promotes your business or is something your target market would be interested in. For example, if you sell jewelry, create a “10 Classic Jewelry Pieces to Own” list or if you sell wedding products, “Six-Week Countdown Wedding Checklist”.
Attend a popular music or sports event and wear a t-shirt that has your store name and url printed in a large readable font on the front and back.
In your product copy cover the 5 Ws (and one H) and tell customers what it is, who will use it, when they will use it, why they will use, where they will use it, and how they use it (if applicable).
Offer and promote an ongoing discount to trades, professionals, students and/or seniors, whichever is most applicable.
Join a Facebook fan page of something you are truly interested in, like a favorite TV show. Just join in the conversation; never use it to promote your business. Your avatar and Facebook user name should say it all.
Use your social media avatar like an ad, to promote your latest product or sale.
Have a fridge magnet made with your online store url. Then ask friends and family to put it on the refrigerator in the lunch room of their work place, in addition to their home fridge.
When sending out customer packages at Christmas, include a recipe card with a Christmas cookie recipe on it. Make sure your store name and url are also clearly on it. This is something they will keep and pull out every Christmas, reminding them of your store.

Download One of My 12-Month Marketing Plans!

Over 300 tactics to try for advertising, promotions, sales, publicity, SEO, content marketing and social media in my 12-Month Marketing Strategy Plans with plans specific for what you sell, including: