8 Most
Cost-Effective Ways to Market Your Small Business
As a small business owner, you’ll often have a tight marketing budget to
utilize. This can make promoting your business challenging. While you shouldn’t
see marketing as an expense but rather as an investment, there are
cost-effective ways to market your business.
You might not have enough time to research and identify various marketing
strategies that you can use. But don’t worry, we can help you do that.
This article will provide you with eight of the most cost-effective ways to
market your small business.
Let’s get started.
1. Build a
Business Website
Image is taken from Unsplash.com.
Businesses need a website because it’s the go-to place for people who want
to learn more about your brand. To build a website, you’ll need to get a domain, a web hosting
plan, and a website builder.
While there are free options available, you should spend some money upfront
to purchase a quality domain name and a hosting plan because these are all
essential to help your business grow.
2. Start a
Blog
One great way to market your business for free is by starting a blog. Small
businesses use blogging to help drive traffic to their websites, improve online
visibility, increase user engagement and strengthen their overall SEO efforts.
Blog posts don’t have to be long-form content but instead should provide
helpful information in simple terms. They should target different topics with
each post but still relate to your industry.
Ideally, your blog should answer people’s queries in search engines. To do
that, you should incorporate the keywords of their queries into your text
naturally.
3. Create
an Account on Google My Business
Image is taken from Unsplash.com.
If you want to market your business locally, creating a Google
Business Profile is one of the most effective and free marketing
strategies you can utilize. It allows your business to show up in Google
Maps, the right-side Knowledge Panel for branded
searches, and the local section of Google Search.
For your business to rank higher on those results, you need to verify
ownership of your listing. The process is done by creating a free Google My Business account.
Once you’ve claimed ownership of your business, you can publish posts
directly to your Google listing and place attractive promotions and discounts
to attract customers.
4. Leverage
Social Media
Leveraging social media and creating an online community is another free way
to market and grow your small business while building trust with your customers
and expressing your brand’s personality.
By creating business social media accounts, you can:
- Directly communicate with your followers to showcase
your brand voice and get feedback.
- Promote your blog posts to drive traffic to your
website.
- Upload an excerpt of your longer content to create
informational posts that are easy to understand.
- Run polls to help generate new ideas.
Whatever you do, you should always regularly upload on your social media
accounts and become proactive to gain your followers’ attention.
5.
Integrate SEO into Your Business Channels
Image is taken from Unsplash.com.
SEO is a set of strategies that helps align your business with search engine
ranking algorithms. This is a cost-effective way to promote your company
because you let search engines do the work.
SEO isn’t just one strategy but a lot of strategies working together to
improve your search engine ranking. You can promote your business by conducting
the following tactics:
- Regularly creating original and high-quality content
with relevant keywords and images.
- Maintaining high standards when it comes to page load
speed, uptime, and security.
- Adding relevant keywords to various pages on your
website.
When SEO is done correctly, and your site ranks high on SERPs, the
search engines promote you and provide your website to people searching for
what you offer.
6. Build a
Referral Program
Another great way to market your small business is by setting up a referral
program. Offer your existing customers free products, vouchers, a free month of
service, or any other reward for referring new customers to your business.
Word of mouth is a powerful and affordable way to market your business.
Based on studies,
77% of customers are more likely to buy a product if their
friends or family recommend it, and customers who were referred by a friend are
four times more likely to make a purchase.
The referral program is very straightforward. All you need to do is give
your existing customers a unique code to share with other people. When the
people they referred input the unique code at the checkout page, your current
customer becomes eligible for your gifts.
7. Enter
Business Awards
Image is taken from Unsplash.com.
Most industries will have business awards which you can participate in and win. The most significant benefit from winning them is gaining an online badge and media coverage which can significantly boost your credibility and prove to your target audience that your business deserves their attention.
There’s no downside to entering business awards since it’s completely free. Of course, if you don’t win, that means you still need to improve your business further. But if you win, you’ll get an increase in brand exposure, make your team more motivated and attract new employees and customers.
8.
Collaborate with Other Organizations
Collaborating with businesses within your industry for a joint project is a
great way to market your small business. This method is great because it means
a lot more exposure to a whole new audience related to your niche.
Partnering with larger businesses also lets you hold conferences to increase
your brand’s visibility, attracting investors. You’ll also gain access to
marketing know-how, the latest technologies, and a broader customer base.
Conclusion
Now you know the eight most cost-effective ways to market your small business. All that’s left to do is to utilize these tactics and grow your brand. Good luck!
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