Let’s get one thing out of the way. You do not need to spend thousands a month on digital marketing to get results. The agencies that tell you otherwise are selling retainers, not solutions.
If you’re a small business — a fabrication shop, a trades firm, a local retailer — you can do a surprising amount with very little cash. Sometimes none at all. The trick is knowing where to put the effort, and more importantly, where not to waste money.
Here’s where to start if your marketing budget is closer to a hundred quid than a thousand.
Google Business Profile: free and non-negotiable
If you do nothing else from this article, do this. Set up and fully complete your Google Business Profile (used to be called Google My Business). It’s free, and it’s how you show up in the map results when someone searches “your trade + your area.”
Fill in every single field. Your opening hours. Your services. Your service areas. Upload proper photos — your premises, your team, your work. Write a decent description using the words your customers would actually search for. Not “synergistic solutions provider” — more like “commercial plumber covering Greater Manchester.”
Then keep it alive. Post updates once a week. Even a quick photo of a job you’ve finished with a line about what you did. Google rewards businesses that actually use the platform.
This alone puts you ahead of half your competitors, who set theirs up in 2019 and haven’t touched it since.
Your website: get the basics right before anything fancy
You don’t need a five-grand website to start generating enquiries. But you do need a site that loads fast, works on phones, and makes it dead obvious what you do and how to get in touch.
At a minimum, your homepage should answer three questions within five seconds: what do you do, where do you do it, and how does someone ring you or fill in a form. That’s it. Everything else is a bonus.
If your site takes more than three seconds to load, nothing else matters. People leave. Google notices. Your rankings drop. Check your speed at PageSpeed Insights — it’s free and it tells you exactly what’s wrong.
If you’re not sure where your website stands, we offer a free business audit that covers exactly this kind of thing — no strings attached.
Google reviews: your best free marketing tool
Reviews are the single most underrated marketing tool for small businesses. They affect your Google ranking, they build trust before someone even speaks to you, and they cost nothing.
Most businesses have a handful of reviews. Some have none. If you can get to 20 or 30 genuine reviews, you’ll stand out in your area because almost nobody bothers.
The secret is making it easy. Send a direct link to your Google review page after every job. A quick text message works better than email. Something like: “Thanks for the work today — if you’ve got 30 seconds, a Google review really helps us out” followed by the link. That’s it. No grovelling.
We’ll cover reviews in more depth in a future post, but for now, just start asking.
One social channel done properly vs five done badly
This is where most small businesses go wrong with marketing. They set up a Facebook page, an Instagram account, a Twitter profile, a LinkedIn page, and maybe even a TikTok for good measure. Then they post to all of them sporadically, get frustrated with the lack of engagement, and give up.
Pick one. The one where your customers actually are.
If you’re B2B — selling to other businesses — LinkedIn or even just your Google Business Profile is probably more valuable than Instagram. If you’re a consumer-facing business — a salon, a retailer, a restaurant — Facebook or Instagram makes more sense.
Post regularly. Three times a week is plenty. Show your work, share useful tips, be a real person. Consistency beats frequency every time. One good post a week beats five forgettable ones.
And don’t buy followers. Ever. It’s a waste of money and it actually hurts your engagement rates because those fake accounts never interact with anything.
Local directories: the free ones are worth five minutes
There are dozens of free business directories in the UK — Yell, Thomson Local, FreeIndex, Yelp, Cylex. Most of them are worth listing on, not because anyone browses them (they don’t, really), but because each listing creates a citation. That’s a mention of your business name, address, and phone number on another website, and Google uses those to verify you’re legitimate.
Spend an afternoon listing your business on ten or fifteen of these. Make sure your name, address, and phone number are identical everywhere — right down to the formatting. Google gets confused by inconsistencies. If your website says “Manchester Road” and Yell says “Manchester Rd”, that’s a mismatch.
It’s boring work. But it’s free, it helps your local rankings, and you only have to do it once.
What NOT to waste money on
This is arguably the more important section. When budget is tight, avoiding waste matters as much as spending wisely.
Don’t pay for a logo redesign before your website works. A beautiful logo on a broken website is like polishing a car with no engine. Fix the fundamentals first.
Don’t run Google Ads until your website converts. Paid ads send people to your site. If your site doesn’t convert visitors into enquiries, you’re paying for traffic that leaves without doing anything. Sort the site first.
Don’t pay someone to post generic rubbish on your social media. Those “Happy Friday from the team!” posts with a stock photo do nothing. If you can’t create genuinely useful content, post less rather than posting filler.
Don’t buy links for SEO. If someone emails you offering “high-quality backlinks” for a monthly fee, ignore them. Buying links is against Google’s guidelines and can actively harm your rankings. The companies selling them don’t care because they got their money either way.
Don’t sign a 12-month marketing contract. Any decent digital marketing provider should be confident enough in their work to let you leave with reasonable notice. If they need a year-long lock-in to keep you, ask yourself why.
Where to spend your first hundred quid
If you genuinely have a hundred pounds to spend and need to make it count:
- Professional headshot and a few photos of your work (ask a mate with a decent camera, or hire a photographer for an hour — about £50-80). Real photos on your website and Google profile make a noticeable difference.
- A domain-based email address (about £5/month through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365). info@yourbusiness.co.uk looks more credible than yourbusiness247@gmail.com.
- A basic SEO audit tool — Ubersuggest has a free tier, and SE Ranking offers affordable plans. These help you see what your competitors are doing and where your quick wins are.
That’s it. No fancy tools, no agency retainers, no marketing automation platforms. Just the fundamentals, done properly.
The uncomfortable truth
Most of this isn’t glamorous. Setting up directories, asking for reviews, writing a decent Google Business description — it’s not exactly the stuff of viral marketing campaigns. But for a small business trying to get found locally, this is what actually moves the needle.
The businesses that win aren’t the ones with the biggest budget. They’re the ones that do the boring stuff consistently while everyone else is chasing shortcuts.
Start with one thing from this list. Do it properly. Then move to the next. In six months you’ll be miles ahead of where you are now.
Frequently asked questions
How much should a small business spend on digital marketing?
There’s no magic number, but most small businesses can make real progress with £200-500 a month once the basics are in place. The key is spending it on the right things. If your Google Business Profile isn’t set up and your website doesn’t work on phones, spending money on ads or social media management is putting the cart before the horse.
Is social media marketing worth it for small businesses?
It can be, but only if you focus on one or two platforms where your customers actually spend time and post consistently. Being on five platforms with sporadic updates is worse than being on one platform with regular, useful content. For most B2B businesses, Google and LinkedIn matter more than Instagram.
What free marketing tools should small businesses use?
Google Business Profile, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and Canva for basic graphics are all free and genuinely useful. Ubersuggest has a limited free tier for SEO research. Beyond that, the most valuable free tool is your phone — use it to take photos of your work and ask customers for reviews.
How long does it take for digital marketing to show results?
SEO and content work typically take three to six months to gain traction. Google reviews start helping almost immediately once you have a decent number. Social media engagement builds over weeks of consistent posting. Paid ads can generate enquiries within days, but only if your website is ready to convert that traffic — otherwise you’re just paying for visitors who leave.