One of the challenges that every small business faces is finding the right balance between marketing expenditure and results. While you may want to spend a lot of money to promote your business, that is not always an option. You may be hoping to find some ways to market your business more affordably.
If you are serious about elevating the brand recognition and reputation of your small business, you can try to use some of the strategies outlined below.
Leverage Digital Channels
There is a reason why people are so enamored with digital marketing. If you care about the short and long term outlook of your company, you will do everything to improve your digital presence.
The first step is to set up a website that looks classy and professional. You can easily use WordPress or a similar service to do all of this on your own, if you do not want to pay someone.
The one time you may want to hire a pro is when it comes to SEO, as you will want them to set up your various site pages so that your website ranks high on Google search results pages.
Another digital channel you should be exploring is social media. Having accounts on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter will help you directly reach the people who may have an interest in the products or services that you are offering. Another powerful channel is looking for email marketing which often works in cahoots with social media.
Invest in Promotional Materials
ProPromotional “merch” is a wonderful way to get more people talking about your business. Say you are running a convenience store or a small grocery store – having custom bags sporting your logo that you give away will help you raise awareness in the local area. You could also get some business cards from a local business card printing service and put them next to the cashier for people to take, or even in the bag ready to go home with customers.
There may be an instance where someone shops at your business and they are leaving with their products in one of your custom tote bags. Now they will walk around the area and people will be seeing your logo printed on both sides of the bag.
You may think that is such a simple thing but such marketing can make a huge difference. People in the area will learn there is a new store open that they should be checking out at some point.
Even if you have a different type of business, you can always give away custom tote bags, hats or even pens to customers who buy a certain dollar amount of items.
Use Word of Mouth
The most exciting and interesting marketing strategy is not as effective as getting people to do the work for you. Consider offering some incentive for people to get others to shop at your business.
Perhaps you can have a special code that you give to each person after they complete an order. If another person comes back with that code, both of you get 10% off a purchase. That is an excellent way to get people to keep talking about what you are offering.
There are other ways you could use such a strategy as well. Perhaps you can look to offer a discount if people come in to shop together, and one of them has shopped with you in the past. These are just some ways you can use word of mouth to elevate your company.
The beauty of all these promotions is that you do not have to invest much money at all. The discounts you are offering will be easily offset by the new business to get.
Consider Print Marketing
Even though digital marketing is all the rage, you should still invest time and money in print marketing. When you are running a local business, connecting with the target audience in that area is what matters the most.
Say you are offering some discount or promotion in the coming weeks. Using print marketing, you can get information about that promotion to everyone in the area.
If you want to be more specific you can even look to target specific neighborhoods. Perhaps you have some historical data that shows you get more people coming into your store from certain parts of your city or town.
The beauty of print marketing is that you do not have to spend much money to get a great return. Even if you are only paying for printing services and a few hours of your employees’ time, you can get some excellent results.
Strike the Perfect Balance
Running a small business is often a balancing act. You must spend money in order to promote your business and earn more, but you cannot go overboard either. The strategies above should help you strike that balance.
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