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With no funding in place and no large marketing budget for advertising, small business owners and entrepreneurs need to make every dollar counts, and see immediate ROI on their marketing investment. There are many channels out there to promote your business. It’s hard for business owners to pinpoint exactly where to invest without blowing their budget. Therefore, in this post we’re going to explore 7 ways to market your small business on a shoestring budget.
Some basic steps to market your small business without breaking the bank
Network
Part of building your brand and marketing that brand is to build relationship with other business owners or people who might have an interest in your industry.
Networking will not provide you instant gratification, but having a strong network is probably one of the greatest asset a small business can have.
One way to network with others could be joining your local chamber of commerce.
Connect with your Community
Similar to networking above, you want to make sure you are connected with your community and know about local events going on where you can get opportunity to market your brand. Find ways to get involved by sponsoring local events, and nonprofit events. Doing so is a great way to get your name out there while also being a good community steward. You can find those events on EventBrite.
Create A Blog
Customer engagement is an extremely important element of online marketing and branding. Blogging provides the opportunity for you to connect with your existing and potential customers in a different, more conversational way. With blogging you can build trust with your target audience through high quality content that they find relevant. Keep your customers up to date on your next product. Let them know what you’re currently working on.
Free Trial
The best way to get people to try your product or service is to give it away for free sometimes. Have long term goal when building your customer base. Don’t hesitate to give someone a free trial or a sample. In today’s economy people want to try out stuff before they purchase it. Think of Google business model.
Local Business Listings
People are always searching the internet for local businesses. Help them find you by add your business to local directory listing platforms such as Upamile, and Yelp.
E-mail Marketing
Most of your website visitors will not buy your products or services right away. Therefore, you need to create a way to harvest visitors contact information for additional marketing and leads.
Social Media
While Upamile, and Yelp are great tools for local searches and reviews, consider using platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. Those platforms will offer you even more opportunities to share your posts, content, and promotions to a wider audience.
Well, there you have some basic steps to market your small business and increase your brand awareness. Building a business is one but building a brand is another. You have a long road ahead of you, therefore start early and stay focus. Any of these small steps if taken will have a profound impact on your business growth in the long run.
