If you're in business, my guess is you probably plan to stay that way. That being the case, you need to promote your business to let new folks know that you're out here ready to take care of them.
That can be a challenge when your ambition outweighs your marketing budget. Luckily, there are plenty of low cost ways to promote your business.
We're going to take a look at 5 quick hits that you can put in play today.
Start By Creating Useful Content
I'm a big fan of using content to promote. It's low cost and depending on what content you're working with and where you're dropping it, it can do some really cool things for you.
One the best things content can do for you is help you be useful to your target audience. After all, if you've got a tiny little website online, you need to make the most of every visitor.
Creating helpful articles is a great way to educate your customer and it gives you an opportunity to share some of the insights and knowledge that are uniquely available through your business.
It also accomplishes one of your key objectives which is to establish your authority with future customers and of course, the search engines that will send them your way.
In addition to populating your own site with content, it's also a good idea to drop content onto sites like Medium.com. This will allow you to touch an even wider audience.
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Remember to Promote Your Business on Yelp
Some of the most important promotion your business will receive will come from outside your company.
The reviews that your customers leave on sites like Yelp, Foursquare and Google Maps have an outsized effect on what many potential customers believe about your company. These reviews are very important to the success of your company and should be monitored regularly.
And while it may not always be the flowery praise we all want, this feedback can help you identify specific things that need improvement, as well as what's working for your business.
Monitoring Yelp in particular is especially important because it has such a large audience across platforms and impacts the responses from voice assistants like Alexa and Siri.
Leverage the Power of Social Media
People like to do business with people they know like and trust. Social media is one of the easiest ways to help potential customers get to know and like you.
Your routine social media posts promote your business by letting your audience see who you are and what you are all about.
Though it can be easy to get sucked into the social media vortex, try not to post anything more than once a day and make sure each of your posts is high quality with an eye-catching image or graphic.
With social media, a little goes a long way. You do not need to spend a large chunk of your marketing budget to be effective. There's no need to worry whether or not your audience will find what you post to be interesting.
Anything you post will garner at least some attention, and everything you post will sit online waiting to be viewed by a potential customer who wants to know ore about you and your company.
People want to work people. Using this particular marketing channel helps to humanize your business.
Don't Forget Referrals. The Original Way to Promote Your Business.
Review marketing is often referred to as the new “word of mouth” advertising, however the “old word of mouth advertising is still out there driving new business every day.
Referral marketing is one of the least expensive and most effective ways to get new clients. You can get a referral from an existing customer or from some other source such as a fellow professional, local shop owner, etc.
One technique that works very well is providing an incentive for people to refer friends and family to you. You could provide the referrer with a free products or services, or even use a points systems. This turns your system into a game where customers can unlock prizes based on how many referrals they send your way!
Referral programs are a great way to grow your business. They allow you to reward the people who are helping you grow your company and they help new customers find you when they otherwise have gone undiscovered.
The main caveat with referral programs is to make sure that the rules are clear and all participants understand them. This helps prevent abuses and hurt feelings over feeling cheated out of something owed them!
One of those common misconceptions a lot of small business owners tend to cling to is that “marketing” is something that only large businesses with deep pockets do. This couldn't be further from the truth!
Large or small, your business needs new folks coming through the door. If you don't promote your business you may find that you won't have a business to promote.
You don't need a huge war chest to promote yourself. There are plenty of ways to promote your business on a shoestring budget. In this blog post, we will discuss five creative marketing ideas that won't break the bank.
Conserve Your Budget
Just because you're a small business doesn't mean you need to spend a fortune on marketing. These four marketing ideas are simple and cost-effective because they don’t require a significant investment, which is perfect for small business owners on a shoestring budget.
If you want to discuss how these ideas could work in your own campaign, schedule a free consultation to do a little brainstorming. We're standing by ready and waiting to help you succeed!
