Marketing With a Budget
Opening and managing a small business takes a lot of forethought, resilience, and planning to deliver a product or service to your target audience. It takes building a solid product and communicating that product to your consumer in a way that is captivating and trustworthy. This can be an incredibly difficult feat to undertake.
What if your product or service was the best in the business, but you are still not seeing the traffic you know you deserve? That’s where good marketing comes in. Marketing is an essential part of any business as it allows you to not only reach new consumers but also allows you to build the reputation of your business. If done strategically, it will not only bring in more business but will allow you to curate the future perception of your business to your customers. However, what if you don’t possess the capital to launch costly marketing campaigns like your competitors? No worries, there are many tools you can use to market your business at a low cost or even free! Below are many cost-effective ways businesses can market their business.
I. Utilize Social Media
The most cost-effective and streamlined method to advertise your business is by maintaining an active social media presence. Hundreds of millions of people use social media every day. Consequently, utilizing social media may allow you to reach audiences you could never reach using your typical in-person advertising efforts. Every social media platform has a particular set of advertising guidelines. However, there are generally 2 ways you can use social media to attract attention to your small business.
Pay for promotion. Most social media services have advertisement features that allow you to reach a certain number of individuals based on specific demographics. Demographics include age, gender, location, and much more. This tool effectively exposes your products or services directly to your target consumer. In addition, it offers very flexible options in terms of price. For example, you can set a specific daily budget and duration of your ads. This helps you stay within your budget.
Building a business page without promotion. This option is great because it is completely free! However, it can take a long time to see results and can be incredibly tedious. While tt may be difficult, if you can develop an advertisement interesting enough to garner attention user attention, you may find yourself developing an audience for your product/services. Many companies have caught onto this recently and have hired creators to develop content for their companies. Doing this will not only bring in more buyers but may result in loyal “fans” of your organization.
II. Use email marketing.
Email lists are also an incredibly cost-effective and simple way to market your business. Members who are on your email list are already interested in your business, which means that you will have a dedicated method for communicating with your consumers. Sending a strong email with interesting content every week is a great way to get your consumers to cherish your business and its products. It may be difficult to grow your email list, but there are many ways you can cost-effectively do that:
Create valuable content. This may be a no-brainer, but many businesses don’t put in the time or energy to make sure their content is engaging and valuable to consumers. Successfully retaining consumers’ interest every week is a great way to develop a meaningful relationship with your customer.
Make it easy for subscribers to share your content. The easier it is for consumers to share your emails, the more impact your emails will likely have. For example, adding buttons that instantly link to users’ social media accounts can make it easy for subscribers to share their content with friends/family that may be interested as well.
Website pop-up. How are consumers supposed to subscribe to your email list if they don’t even know you have one? Make sure they know when they immediately enter your site with a pop-up. Offering them an incentive to join can motivate them to sign up even more!
III. Create a Referral Program
Do you have a great product or service that your customers truly love? That’s great! Customers who love your products would likely be more inclined to refer their friends/family to your business. You can utilize this by rewarding them with an incentive for them to do so. Referral programs are another great way of advertising your business without breaking the bank. In addition, they will motivate your consumers to continue advertising your business, creating a constant flow of marketing at a cost you can control! For example, if you offer products, you can give away a high-quality product or credit towards your store. If you are offering a service, you can offer a discount on a specific package you offer. However, you must make sure that the reward is valuable to a wide range of customers or else you may lose the attention of many. Below are some ideas for referral programs that can attract some new consumers:
Social Sharing. This is the most common method and asks the consumer to share a “deal” happening at your company in return for a reward. Customers can feel sometimes you are manipulating them when asking for referrals. This method is incredibly effective as allows you to receive referrals without directly asking for them.
Fundraising. Fundraising is a great way to show your customers that your organization is invested in more than just business. Showing interest in a cause, they care about, shows that you aren’t just interested in their spending habits, but in their values as well. Fundraisers can help bring in consumers with similar values to your business.
Customer Loyalty Programs. These are incredibly effective if you have many consumers who swear by your product/service. Successful loyalty programs offer incentives to customers over the long term, encouraging referral to many people at a time. Customers engaged in these programs will be offered as many memberships as they can achieve, each with progressively higher benefits.
IV. Collect customer feedback.
The final and most overlooked way to successful advertising is receiving direct feedback from your customers. As a business owner, you may be blinded by your love for industry or the business you spent years building. Regardless, customers will build a perception of your business whether you’ve invested nothing or millions into your business. In addition, at the end of the day, the customer is the most important person when it comes to your business. Considering this, you can see the customer as an opportunity to improve your business and bring in more customers. Because the odds are, if one consumer has certain feelings about your business, other customers have likely thought or felt the same thing. It is your job to see how you can improve and doing so will allow you to improve your customers’ satisfaction. Which will bring in more customers.
At the end of the day, marketing is a way for businesses to reach new customers and maintain communication with current ones. Doing so successfully can help you build a strong reputation and increases the likelihood of building a stronger consumer base. Unfortunately, many businesses cannot afford to spend thousands of dollars on advertisements, especially ones that are just starting. However, there are many cost-effective alternatives to market your business organically that can help you receive the exposure your business deserves!