11 Marketing Ideas For Your Small Business on a Low-Budget
I am sure that your realize that marketing for your small business is not only daunting, but what if you are also on a tight, small budget trying to market your new product or service.
This can be stressful for some entrepreneurs, but you don’t have to worry because we will be giving you 11 ideas on how to market your small business on a small or little to no budget.
Now once you start attracting new leads and followers, you should have an already-to-go sales funnel to convert you new legion of leads.
If sales funnels are new to you, then read more about creating a fantastic sales funnel for your industry here.
Try These 11 budget friendly marketing strategies
1. Give Your Product or Services Away for FREE
How many times have you been to Sam’s club on a busy Saturday and have tried those free samples that they passed out? Also think about how many times that you have purchased one of those products after you have tried the sample.
You may not have purchased that particular product at that moment, but you may have down the line at some point or another.
Giving someone a free product or service is one great way to allow on the fence purchasers an opportunity to see what you have to offer with the hopes of them purchasing from you down the line at some point or another.
2. Offer Discounts or Coupons
People love a good discount. I cannot many times I have overheard people talk about using a coupon on some item.
Coupons help expand your base, because people tend to brag about “deals” they have used.
You can utilize coupons when utilizing your social media strategy. Couponing tend to be infectious, offering coupons on social media tend to take off like rapid-fire amongst your audience and others.
3. Referrals All the Way
Referrals help to increase incoming leads. Those referrals trust those that referred them, so it is more likely that they too will purchase from you. This in return will create positive brand recognition for your small business as well.
Having a steady stream of referrals will give you the opportunity to have a higher lead conversion, granted everything else is in order for your business. With the higher lead conversion, you will be rewarded with higher revenue as well as increased brand loyalty.
Just ask every lead you get for a referral. It is FREE!
4. Create Customer Rapport
The customer that you have currently will more likely become a repeat customer. Building rapport with your existing customers is vital for your small business.
By having rapport with your current customer base, you have the opportunity to ask for referrals and to offer them coupons, etc. Without customer rapport, they will most likely not feel compelled to be an advocate for your brand.
5. Create Social Media Awareness
In today’s world for small business owners, you can do so much without having to hire an outside company for brand awareness. Social media is the reason why.
You do not have to wait years to have buzz for your brand nor do you have to hire a PR firm to do so for you. You can simply create wonderful content on social media and you can tell your story to others yourself, as you see fit.
6. Network
Networking is so underrated. You can build a name for your small business with just networking alone.
You can meet people that put you in a better position, you can meet other small business owners that you can learn from, and/or you can meet other like-minded individuals and you all can create a think-tank that will benefit all that is involved.
7. Collaborate with Others in Your Space
Collaborating with others with the goal of creating a group to cross-promote one another is a great way to market your small business.
“You scratch my back if you scratch mine” approach can be beneficial to all who participates because everyone is working together to ‘x"‘ goals. You all can share each others content in each respective platform or you all can promote each others’ products or services to each respective audience.
8. Repurpose Old Content
Repurposing or rehashing old content is a great way to convert great content into another means of communication. You can take a really great blog post you have wrote several months back and convert that blog post into a video.
This will allow you to not only be active content wise, but you can introduce great content piece to a new audience.
It will be fresh content and chances are there will be tons of leads that can benefits from that material that didn't see it the first time.
9. Offer Online Contests
Online contests are a great way to get potential leads and current customer participation. The only thing is, you will to spend a bit of money of the prize. You would want the contest to be worth wild, right?
Of course the prize does not have to extravagant, but you should aim to give something away that people will find useful.
10. Host an Event
Events can be really great to capture tons of leads for your small business, and they are really cost effective as well.
You hold events at churches, coffee shops, libraries, and community centers. The only thing you have to worry about is getting people excited about the event you wish to hold.
Also, if you are looking to create sales on top of lead gathering, your salesmanship should on full effect.
11. Email Marketing
Maintaining an established relationship with your existing customer base, as well as building rapport with new leads can be accomplished by use of email marketing. Email marketing is also still effective to offer new products or getting people to subscribe to your newsletter compare to any other means.
Every small business longs to have strong advocates for your brand. Email marketing does just that; it help build a strong army of advocates by keeping them in the loop of what is going on with your small business while showing that you care about their needs.
Of course there are few things you should have in place before you can cultivate your army.
I suggest to read 3 Essential Features You Need for Your Branding Strategy to Work.
Understanding these 3 features will compliment your email marketing strategy.
[Summary] Low-budget Ideas to Market Your Small Business on a Low Budget
Give your product or service away for FREE
Offer discounts or coupons
Utilize referrals
Create rapport with your audience
Create awareness on social media
Network with others
Network or collaborate with others specifically in your industry
Repurpose you old content
Offer online contests
Host an event locally or online
Engage in email marketing
These inexpensive marketing 11 marketing ideas will get things started for your small business. They will help your small business build rapport with customers, engage with new leads, and keep your small business competitive.
Can you add any low-budget marketing strategies that we have missed?
What has worked for you?