Big vision, small budget. Sound familiar?
Sometimes people don’t realise that in many ways running a small business is more challenging than running a larger one. Why? Because you have limited resources, the trade offs are more prominent. If you put money into marketing, you might be missing putting funds into technology for example.
There’s what we call an ‘opportunity cost’. By taking one course of action, you are restricting or removing your ability to take another.
So finding ways to do things on the cheap, or better, for free is a great hack for any small business.
We’ve put together 14 tips and suggestions that you can apply in your business now to move your marketing efforts forward at low cost.
Let’s get into it.
1. Use Social Media Platforms to Market Your Business for Free
Anything that is free is almost certainly going to require time and effort from you – and that’s certainly true for this one.
- Create a social media profile for your business and populate it with engaging content.
- Post links to your website or blog on social media
- Use social media to build relationships with customers and followers, and promote special offers and discounts.
- Work out your goals and which platforms are best for you to be on. There’s a lot of choice, so if you stretch yourself too thin, you might end up doing a lot of things badly.
2. Start a Blog or Vlog Related to Your Business and Write Regular Content
A blog can help you to attract new customers and clients who are interested in what you do.
By sharing valuable content on your blog, you can draw in new readers and potential customers who might not have otherwise known about your business.
A blog can help to improve your SEO (search engine optimization) ranking. When potential customers search for keywords related to your business, they may be more likely to find your website if it ranks higher in the search engine results pages.
Blogging can help to build trust and credibility with current and potential customers. By providing insights into your business and sharing personal stories.
3. Join Online Groups and Forums Related to Your Industry and Participate in the Discussion
When you join an online forum or support group, you’ll be able to get advice and feedback from people who have been through the start-up process before. This can be invaluable in helping you to avoid making common mistakes, and can give you some great ideas for how to grow your business.
- You’ll be able to connect with other like-minded individuals. These connections can be helpful in a number of ways, including networking, finding mentors, and forming strategic partnerships.
- Joining an online forum or support group can help to boost your visibility and credibility as a business owner.
- When you participate in these groups, you’ll be able to share your expert knowledge and insights with others, which can help to build trust and credibility.
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4. Reach Out to Bloggers, Journalists, and Other Influencers in Your Industry and Offer To Do a Guest Post or Interview With Them
One of the primary reasons that reaching out to bloggers, influencers and journalists can help startup businesses grow is because they have a large audience. By partnering with a blogger or influencer, businesses can tap into their large pool of followers and potential customers.
Influencers can be beneficial for businesses because they are trusted sources of information. People often look to bloggers and influencers for product recommendations, so if a business can get their endorsement, it can go a long way in helping to grow the business.
Another benefit of working with bloggers and influencers is that they can help to create buzz around a business. If a business can get bloggers and influencers talking about their product or service, it can generate interest and excitement, which can lead to more people wanting to learn about the business.
Note: You’ll need to have a good reason to reach out. Think it through first. If it’s a journalist, is it a story that’s worthwhile for them to publish? Will it save them some time and fill some column inches for them?
If it’s an influencer, what’s in it for them? Remember the acronym WIIFM (What’s in it for me). You should be able to answer this for the person you plan to.
5. Work With Other Companies To Cross Promote Services
One of the primary benefits of developing partnerships with other businesses is that it can help to expand your customer base. By partnering with another business, you can reach new customers that you would not have had access to otherwise.
It can help to increase efficiency and reduce costs. This is because partners can share resources and knowledge with each other, which can help to improve processes and eliminate waste. For example, if you are a manufacturer, you could partner with a local supplier in order to streamline your production process.
Developing partnerships with other businesses can also help to improve your brand image. This is because partnering with reputable and well-known businesses can give your brand more visibility and credibility.
6. Develop Partnerships With Other Businesses in Complementary Industries
The first step is to identify businesses in complementary industries that you could form relationships with. For example, if you are a company that sells software, you might form a relationship with a hardware company.
- The benefits of forming these relationships are two-fold. First, you can offer a complete solution to your customers by bundling your software with the hardware. Second, you can share resources and knowledge with the other company, which can help both of you to grow.
- Reach out to the companies that you have identified and start building relationships. This can be done in a number of ways, such as attending industry events, hosting joint webinars or podcasts, or simply having coffee or lunch together. The key is to get to know the other company and build trust.
- Once you have built strong relationships with complementary companies, there are a number of ways that you can grow your business together. For example, you could cross-sell each other’s products, co-market to each other’s customer base, or even merge or acquire each other’s businesses. By working together, you can tap into new markets and grow your business more quickly than you could on your own.
7. Setup Your CRM System Properly
Staying organised whilst you are a small business really matters. Your time is your biggest asset and there’s almost no way to remember all the different things you plan to do for your sales strategy. Whilst modern CRM’s have all sorts of bells and whistles, the basic function of recording tasks and making sure you don’t miss important actions you plan for the future is at the heart of why you need a CRM.
- Your CRM can help you track your sales progress by keeping track of your customer interactions and communications. It can also help you manage your sales pipeline by keeping track of your leads and opportunities.
- You measure your success by tracking your closed deals and win rates, which can inform your future sales strategy.
- If you set it properly, your CRM can save you a whole bunch of time by automating tasks like sending emails & text messages.
8. Use Automation Where Possible To Drive Your Marketing Forward
As discussed above, a CRM system can automate many of the tasks associated with customer relationship management, including contact management, sales tracking, and marketing campaigns. By automating these tasks, a small business can free up its staff to focus on more important tasks, such as closing sales and providing excellent customer service.
Marketing automation software can help a small business to automate many of the tasks associated with marketing, including email marketing, social media campaigns, and targeted ads. By automating these tasks, a small business can save time and money while still reaching a large number of potential customers.
Inventory management software can help a small business to automate the task of tracking inventory levels and reordering stock. This type of software can also help to streamline the process of invoicing customers and processing payments. By automating these tasks, a small business can save time and money while still providing excellent customer service.
9. Host a Free Event or Webinar Related to Your Industry or Product/Service
Events can help to increase the visibility of your business as they provide an opportunity for you to showcase your products or services to a large audience.
If you opt for a webinar, it can be recorded and shared online, which can help to attract even more potential customers to your business.
Webinars & face to face events also offer the opportunity for improved engagement with potential customers. Unlike other marketing channels, such as television or print ads, they allow you to interact directly with your audience. This interaction can help to build trust and rapport with potential customers, which may encourage them to do business with your company in the future.
Events can be a cost-effective way to attract new customers. Particularly digital events, which can be conducted from the comfort of your own office, which helps to further reduce costs.
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10. Create a Referral Scheme
A referral scheme is a system where customers or other businesses are given an incentive to refer new customers to a business. You have to make it worthwhile for people, otherwise they won’t bother. Typical examples include a payment when you win new business as a result of the referral. If you offer a subscription of any kind, some referral schemes will pay a percentage of that revenue to the referrer for the lifetime you have the customer. This can be a big incentive for people to keep referring clients to you.
Referral schemes can be a low-cost way to grow a small business as they require very little marketing or advertising expenditure. Arguably, depending on how you structure your incentives, the cost of customer acquisition can be higher than other forms of advertising, but the upfront costs are lower.
Referral schemes can be an effective way to generate new leads and customers for a small business, as customers are more likely to trust a recommendation from a friend or family member than an advertisement.
One tip is to make your referral scheme easy to understand and use, so that people can easily take advantage of it. It also needs to be trackable and transparent. Think this through early to avoid unnecessary paperwork and admin time further down the line!
11. Get Involved With Your Business Networking
Business networking can help small companies to market and sell their products or services by providing them with a way to connect with potential customers and clients.
It can also help you find new business opportunities, as well as to build relationships with other businesses that could lead to future collaborations. It’s not always (and mostly not) about who can sell to in the room, and more about earning the trust and respect of other local companies that can refer to third companies they are connected with.
A lot of business networking offers ways to raise your profile and visibility by delivering presentations or knowledge sharing sessions which can in turn lead to more sales and more customers.
Your local chamber of commerce can also help businesses to network with other businesses in the area. They usually help businesses to promote their products and services to the community.
The Chamber of Commerce tends to be able to help businesses to access resources and information about the local market, including economic forecasting and expert advice exporting and raising finance.
12. Use Online Tools Like Canva To Create Professional Graphics for Free
Professional graphics can help to support marketing efforts by creating visuals that will capture the attention of potential customers. For example, an eye-catching poster or flyer can help to promote a company’s products or services in a public space. Additionally, professional graphics can be used to create marketing collateral such as brochures and website designs.
Professional graphics can help support your sales efforts by creating visuals that will appeal to potential customers. For example, professional graphics can be used to create sales presentations or product catalogues.
You can use cheap or free tools that build re-usable marketing ‘assets’ that you can share on social media. These can reinforce your brand identity, provide valuable statistics for potential customers and demonstrate your credibility and whilst adding value to your audience.
13. Develop an Email Marketing Campaign and Send Out Regular Newsletters
Before you can create an email marketing campaign that is effective, you need to first define your goals. What do you hope to achieve with your campaign? Do you want to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, or generate sales? Once you know what your goals are, you can create a campaign that is designed to achieve them.
- In order for your email marketing campaign to be successful, you need to have a list of subscribers who are interested in receiving your emails. You can build your list by adding a sign-up form to your website or blog, or by providing an incentive for people to subscribe to your list (such as a discount or free shipping on their first purchase).
- Your emails need to contain content that is compelling and interesting enough to get people to open and read them. In order to do this, you should focus on creating headlines that are attention-grabbing and make use of strong visuals. Additionally, make sure that your content is relevant to your target audience and provides them with value.
- When it comes to email marketing, timing is everything. You need to make sure that you send your emails at a time when people are most likely to check their inboxes and read them. For most people, this means sending emails early in the morning or in the evening.
It’s important to remember that email marketing is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. What works for one business may not work for another. As such, it is important to test different elements of your email marketing campaign (such as the subject line, content, call-to-action, etc.) in order to see what gets the best results.
14. Create a Marketing Plan
The first step in creating a marketing plan is to work out what you are hoping to achieve with your marketing efforts? Do you want to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, or generate leads? Once you have a clear understanding of your goals, you can begin to develop a plan to achieve them.
It is also important to have a clear understanding of your target audience. Who are you trying to reach with your marketing efforts? What are their needs and desires? What are their demographics? Knowing your target audience will help you develop marketing strategies that are more likely to resonate with them.
Another important consideration is your budget (or maybe lack of it?!). How much money do you have to spend on marketing? You will need to consider the cost of advertising, market research, and any other marketing initiatives you plan to undertake. It is also important to set aside a portion of your budget for unexpected expenses.
Once you have defined your goals and know your target audience, you can begin to select the channels through which you will reach them. There are a variety of marketing channels available, including online, offline, and word-of-mouth. You will need to consider which channels will be most effective for reaching your target audience and achieving your goals.
Once you have selected your channels, you will need to create content that resonates with your target audience. This content should be informative and interesting, and it should align with your overall marketing objectives. If you are using online channels such as social media or email marketing, you will also need to consider the SEO value of your content.
It is important to measure the results of your marketing efforts so that you can determine whether or not they are successful. This can be done by tracking various metrics such as website traffic, leads generated, or sales made. By measuring your results, you can make adjustments to your plan as needed and ensure that your marketing efforts are achieving the desired results.
Final Thoughts
So there we have it, 14 marketing hacks you can lift right now and start using today. Some are low cost, others are no cost.
If we could leave you with one thought, it’s that you can’t ‘boil the ocean’. When you are growing your company, limited resources are a fact of life – you have to make trade offs with your financial decisions as well as your time based decisions.
Even though we’ve given you a bunch of ways to approach marketing, spend some time thinking about what might work for you – and how long you need to stay with it in order to see a result.
Too often businesses start a marketing approach and then walk away from it just before it’s about to start working for them.
You can go for it now!