How many of these five small business marketing refreshes does your business need this term?

Back to school always brings a bit of a reset, and it’s not just the kids sharpening their pencils. At a recent Epsom Business Club meeting, our own Chamber president Richard Excell of Excell Design & Marketing took the “Show and Tell” speaker slot to share five practical, no-budget-required ways to sharpen up your small business marketing this autumn. The tips landed so well with that room that we thought Mole Valley Chamber members deserved the recap too, homework included.

Here’s what came out of the session, along with some starting points for putting each idea into action.

1. Is your website’s first impression out of date?

Old photos, last year’s offers still sitting on the homepage, a blog that stopped in spring. A stale website quietly costs credibility even when your business is exactly what someone’s looking for.

Greggs is a good example of getting this right. It constantly refreshes its site and social content around new products, seasons and the odd surprise launch, so nothing stays stale for long and the brand always feels current.

This term’s homework: spend thirty minutes checking your homepage, opening hours and services page are accurate, and swap out any photos that look pre-2023.

Where to start: ask your web developer or hosting provider for a quick content audit, or work through a simple checklist yourself covering the homepage, contact details, opening hours, service pages and most recent blog post. If you don’t have a content management system you’re comfortable in, most website builders such as Wix, Squarespace and WordPress let you swap text and images without touching any code.

2. Is your SEO built to be useful, not just stuffed with keywords?

Search has moved on from keyword density. It now rewards content that clearly answers the real questions your customers actually ask, which is a core part of good small business marketing today.

MoneySavingExpert built huge organic traffic simply by answering the exact questions people search for, in plain, practical language, with no keyword stuffing needed.

This term’s homework: add an FAQ section to your site answering the three questions you get asked most on the phone or in person.

Where to start: look back through recent customer emails, calls or messages for the questions that come up again and again, that’s your FAQ list, ready made. Free tools like Google Search Console can also show you what people are already typing to find your site. If you’re stuck for wording, an AI assistant can help turn a rough list of questions into clear, on-brand answers in minutes.

3. Are you being found by AI, not just Google?

More people are discovering local businesses through AI assistants and chat tools, not just search results, and those tools favour brands that show up consistently across multiple places, not just their own website.

Businesses with accurate, consistent listings across Google Business Profile, directories and review sites are far more likely to be the ones AI tools mention when someone asks for a local recommendation. Consistency of basic details, name, address and phone number, really does matter.

This term’s homework: make sure your Google Business Profile is accurate and complete, then try asking an AI chatbot who does your service near you, to see what comes back.

Where to start: claim or update your free Google Business Profile listing, and check you’re also listed correctly on Bing Places and any relevant local directories. Keeping your business name, address and phone number identical everywhere makes it far easier for both search engines and AI tools to trust and recommend you.

4. Does your brand look and sound the same everywhere?

You don’t need to reinvent your brand, you need it to look and sound the same everywhere: your website, your social profiles, your email signature, even your van signage.

Innocent Drinks has kept the same playful, chatty tone of voice across cartons, website and social media for over twenty years, total consistency, no logo panic required.

This term’s homework: pick two or three brand colours and one tone of voice, and check they match across everything you send out this month.

Where to start: put together a simple one-page brand guide covering your logo, two or three colours, one font and a few tone of voice notes, so anyone in your business can create on-brand materials without guessing. Free tools like Canva have a brand kit feature that stores this for you and applies it automatically to new designs.

5. Are you showing the real people behind your brand?

Over-polished, stock-photo marketing is losing ground. People want to see who they’re actually buying from.

Yorkshire Tea has built a loyal following by keeping its team and personality front and centre in its marketing, rather than hiding behind a polished corporate voice.

This term’s homework: post one photo or short video this week of you or your team doing the work, no script, no filter.

Where to start: if you don’t currently have decent photos of yourself or your team, it’s worth looking into a local branding or headshot photographer. Many specialise in relaxed, professional photography tailored to your business, and it’s a small investment that gives you a bank of genuine images to use for months. If budget’s tight for now, a smartphone, good natural light and a colleague holding the phone steady will get you a long way.

Richard’s own top tips

Alongside the five points above, Richard shared a couple of things he’s personally found useful for staying productive and keeping his own marketing sharp.

• Asking people you trust for honest feedback is one of the simplest wins available: friends, colleagues or clients looking at your website or marketing with fresh eyes will often spot what you’ve stopped seeing.
• He also flagged two tools worth knowing about. Claude, which he uses to set up ongoing marketing projects and speed up content work considerably.
• And Wispr Flow, a dictation app that turns spoken thoughts into clean, readable text, handy for getting ideas down without a keyboard.

Why this matters for Mole Valley businesses

None of this requires a marketing budget, and that’s rather the point. Good small business marketing is often about attention and consistency rather than spend, and these five checks are exactly the kind of practical, doable actions that make a real difference to how a business is found and trusted locally. It’s also a good example of the value that comes from Surrey business networking: useful, shareable ideas that get passed between local business owners at events like this one.

Pick one of these five refreshes, do it properly this term, and see where it takes your business before the next Chamber breakfast.

If you’d like a fuller marketing or website audit, Richard offers this directly through Excell Design & Marketing, and Chamber members are always welcome to come and have a chat at one of our events.

A note on the examples above: these are well-known UK brands used as illustrations of good practice, not endorsements or partners of Mole Valley Chamber.

CHECKOUT MOLE VALLEY CHAMBER EVENTS HERE

Are you a local business in the Mole Valley District and interested in joining the chamber? Find out more here.