There is a difference between big business marketing strategy and small business marketing strategy. The first major difference is obviously budget. But smaller budgets don’t always mean that a small business can’t have a big budget impact. Take Dollar Shave Club for example. Their famous “Our Blades are Fucking Great” video has over 23,000,000 views at the time of this writing, and cost $4,500 to produce. Yes, $4,500, I didn’t leave a comma or zero out of that price. It shows that with the right script and product, a video placed in front of the right audience can go viral, pushing your business to the limelight. Let’s take the success of that video to today, when Michael Dublin – founder of Dollar Shave Club and the brain behind that video, just sold his business to Unilever for $1,000,000,000. No, I didn’t screw that number up either.

The trick is to be disruptive in your market, and that means using your marketing dollars wisely. Viral video’s are a dime a dozen, but when we break it down, it really comes down to creative content marketing, and using a medium that already has an attentive audience – such as YouTube. Viral videos don’t go viral because they show content that everyone else is showing – they show something that others aren’t. Your business has viral content waiting to be shared, but it’s important to understand what viral means. Viral content doesn’t have to be content that gets a million views, it could be content that gets 1,000 views. It’s important to make that distinction. Go for the 1,000, it’s easier to get.

As a company, you have content that is unique to your business. You may make the same product as everyone else, but maybe the people making it have unique stories to tell. Maybe your worker is a killer singer, and walks around the shop belting out the latest Adele song in perfect pitch. That’s a video that will go viral, but it has to be shot and packaged in a way that it also subconsciously promotes your product. It can’t be a video of that worker singer, and then ends with buy our product. But the opening title could say “Product A worker sings perfect Adele”. Make it part of your marketing strategy, and include all the right brand images that you need to.

Small businesses need to be creative because their budgets don’t allow them to spend in new markets as much as they would like to. Creating content that is easily sharable and informative is the best way to get organic reach without spending. Each time you think of your marketing strategy, think in terms of reach and exposure over spend. A company that is winning with their marketing strategy spends little but reaches far.