Most small business owners, even those with a decent-sized marketing spend, enjoy thinking of new ways to market their business on a budget.
Sometimes small business marketing is as much art as science, as much about being creative as it is about being analytical.
When you are looking to get your message in front of potential customers in your target audience (market), and you want to do so on a budget, you’ll need to mix it up. You’ll want to put some effort and money into various marketing strategies, then stick with and expand upon those that are working.
Here are 10 ideas on how to market your business on a budget:
- Do cross-promotions with other businesses. These can be other local businesses that have some connection to yours, or they can be other non-local business with which you can mutually promote your offerings. Usually, such cross-promotions involve discounts and/or coupons. People love to get a discount!
- Set up a customer referral program. Incentivize your current customers to send new customers your way. You can do so by offering them discounts, credits, or even cash to send potential customers your way.
- Sponsor blog posts. You can sponsor blog posts, podcasts, or other marketing efforts of influencers who are meaningful to your prospective customers. You can even take this a step further and set up an affiliate program where you compensate influencers and others for sending new customers to you.
- Market on social media. Here you can do organic (non-paid) and paid advertising and marketing. Regardless of which social media platform or platforms you advertise and market on, the ultimate goal is to get people to buy your product or service. That said, on most social media, you’ll be wise to not try to sell on the platform itself, but rather drive traffic to your website and other landing pages where you then do your selling. Marketing on social media doesn’t need to be expensive, but whether you’re doing organic or running paid ad campaigns, it can be time consuming. So, consult an expert before you decide how to spend your time and deploy your other resources on social media.
- Join business networking groups. These are more useful for some businesses than for others. In some groups, they’ll only let one person or company in from each industry, so that there are no conflicts and each member can feel comfortable referring business to other members. Beyond referral of potential customers, these groups can also be good places for business owners to share ideas and best practices.
- Use all basic marketing tools. Don’t overlook the basic marketing tools, such as business cards, email marketing and search engine marketing. Each of these can play an important role in the marketing of your business. And some of these approaches, such as email marketing and search engine marketing can be quite nuanced. In other words, you can take a very basic approach or a very sophisticated approach. Just as with social media marketing, it would be a good idea to consult experts in these marketing approaches before investing heavily in them.
- Speak at relevant conferences. Speaking at industry or customer-facing conferences is a great way to establish your credibility and become an influencer in your industry. This can be done either at in-person or online conferences. It will have more or less relevance to you depending on your business, but if it makes sense in your situation, it can be a cost-effective way to spread the word about your company and its products and services. Any speech you give should not be a simple advertisement for you and your business. Rather, it should provide great value to those in attendance, so they want to learn more about you, your company, and your offerings.
- Start a podcast. It is not expensive to start a podcast. It can take a lot of time, though. That said, it can also be a great way to build a following for you and your business. It also represents a great opportunity to have regularly scheduled touch points with your customers and with other experts and business owners in your market.
- Give away something of value. This can take the form of a giveaway of a digital product on your website or of a chance to win a product at your store location. Such an approach allows you to build a mailing list of people who are likely interested in what you have to offer. It’s also a way to add value to your prospective customers and establish your expertise (depending what you’re giving away). It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant, but it would be good if it provides value to your prospective customers and at the same time highlights the quality of your services and/or products.
- Be quoted in written media. Become a trusted resource for reporters and bloggers, so that they will quote you in their articles. Cultivate these relationships, which are win-win, as the reporter gets a go-to sources who provides insights and quotes, and you get exposure for yourself and your business. Such exposure can help to build your credibility and make prospective customers aware of your business. Check out Help A Reporter Out as a starting point if you want to give this approach a try.
Creativity and persistence are your friend when you’re looking for ways to market your business on a budget. Hopefully, the list above will give you inspiration and ideas to continue to expand the reach and effectiveness of your business marketing, without breaking the bank!
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
