15 Small Business Marketing Ideas for Founders, Devs, and Indie Hackers

Source: Dev.to

Optimize Your Google Business Profile

• Claim and fully populate your listing: hours, services, photos, and Q&A.
• Developer tip: Use schema.org/LocalBusiness JSON‑LD on your homepage and ensure server‑side rendering for accurate meta crawling.

Host or Sponsor Community Events

• Offer workshops or meetups that align with your audience (e.g., “Deploying apps on low‑cost infra”).
• Track RSVPs with a lightweight event form and webhook into your CRM.

Leverage Social Media Challenges

• Create a simple hashtag campaign encouraging customers to share results.
• Dev tip: Build a small page that aggregates hashtagged posts via APIs for social proof on your site.

Collaborate with Other Small Businesses

• Cross‑promote complementary products or bundle services.
• Use UTM parameters to track referral traffic and split attribution automatically.

Launch a Referral Program

• Reward referrals with credit or early access.
• Implementation: Generate unique referral codes, validate them server‑side, and expose signup hooks for conversions.

Create Educational Content

• Publish blog posts, short videos, and explainer docs to attract organic traffic and aid onboarding.
• Repurpose long posts into short‑form video scripts and tweetable snippets to maximize reach.

Use Email Marketing (The Smart Way)

• Segment users by behavior and send targeted flows (onboarding, churn recovery).
• Developer tip: Use event‑driven emails (e.g., via webhooks) and verify deliverability with DKIM/SPF.

Experiment with Guerrilla Marketing

• Run low‑cost stunts that get shared locally, then amplify them online.
• Capture event photos and push them through a CDN‑backed gallery to avoid slowing your site.

Invest in Local SEO

• Optimize “near me” keywords and claim directory listings.
• Implementation: Ensure fast server‑side rendered landing pages localized by city with hreflang or structured local pages.

Partner with Micro‑Influencers

• Leverage niche audiences that are highly engaged and cost‑effective.
• Track performance with dedicated promo codes or affiliate links and automate payouts.

Offer Limited‑Time Deals / Flash Sales

• Use urgency sparingly and track conversion lift.
• Developer tip: Implement rate‑limited coupon issuance and track redemption through your analytics pipeline.

Start a Customer Loyalty Program

• Points systems or rewards increase retention.
• Build a simple loyalty microservice that stores points and exposes a secure API the frontend can query.

Share User‑Generated Content (UGC)

• Repost reviews, before/after photos, or customer stories.
• Automate permission requests and ingestion via a small moderation dashboard.

Run Targeted Online Ads on a Budget

• Use precise geo and interest targeting to minimize waste.
• Pro tip: A/B test landing pages and measure by lifetime value, not just CPA.

Publish Customer Success Stories & Testimonials

• Case studies convert better than generic claims.
• Technical tip: Instrument case‑study CTAs with event tracking and tie them back to user journeys.

Quick Implementation Checklist for Developers

• Add JSON‑LD LocalBusiness schema and SSR meta tags.
• Optimize Core Web Vitals: lazy‑load images, use modern image formats, and cache aggressively.
• Track everything: UTM parameters, referral codes, and server‑side events.
• Automate content repurposing: RSS → short videos, blog → email snippets.
• Create small microservices for referrals and loyalty to keep your main app clean.
• Pick 2–3 tactics to start and tie each to a single metric (acquisition, activation, retention, or revenue).
• Use lightweight analytics (server‑side event capture + GA4 or PostHog) and run 2–4‑week experiments.
• If a channel scales, automate it: cron jobs to refresh Google profile images, CI pipelines to deploy landing pages, or Zapier/Make integrations for non‑critical flows.

Further Resources

• Practical templates for landing pages, outreach scripts, and marketing plans:
• Agency‑style examples and services:
• Original non‑technical guide for stakeholders: