Low-Cost Business Marketing Ideas Pt. I

Effective marketing that reaches your target audience and converts sales is an important component in growing any business. A business with a good product or service but with little visibility will likely experience little to no growth. A large reason why many small businesses fail is that their products, services, and message are simply not reaching enough potential customers. This will not allow companies to reach the necessary level of profitability they need in order to continue to operate.

Effective marketing strategies that generate more business can be tricky to figure out and properly execute. Third-party marketing firms can assist in creating fruitful marketing campaigns but hiring such companies can be a costly investment in your business. What if you don't have much money to put towards marketing? How can you implement successful marketing strategies to help grow your small business? In this article, we will discuss some low-cost and effective marketing ideas.

The low-cost business marketing ideas we will cover are the following:

• Social Media
• Content Marketing
• Cross Promotional Collaborations
• Customer Referral Program
• Trade Shows and Networking Events

• Use Social Media

  Social Media is a great way to promote your business. Even without purchasing ads on social media platforms, you can still market your business on social media and gain new customers. By linking your social media pages to your website and sales pages, you will be creating another way for potential customers to find their way to your products or services. You can also encourage your existing customers to give your business feedback and follow you on your various social media pages. Business owners can use social media to easily post engaging content related to their business with links to their website where people can see it and interact with it.

  You can also use your business's social media pages to join groups and communities related to your industry. By engaging with online communities that are relevant to your business, you can help your business gain more exposure. Many people use social media sites as search engines when looking for particular information or products. People that are searching for information related to your business may come across your business's posts. In addition, people will often share posts they feel their friends and family may be interested in, which could function as free marketing for your business.

  By using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, etc., you can quickly and freely generate content regarding your business with outbound links to your website and sales pages. The more places your business is online, the more points of contact you will have where people will come across your business and visit your website and share your content amongst their friends on these various platforms.

• Content Marketing

  Another great way to promote your business is to write high-quality content on your blog or website. By writing quality articles related to your business on your blog or website, you can attract more traffic and customers to your business. Creating articles demonstrating your knowledge of specific areas in your industry can help establish your proficiency and competence in your area of business amongst your customers. By writing high-quality how-to articles, industry insights articles, best products and services articles, and other useful articles, search engines will prioritize your content when people conduct searches related to the topic you are writing about. By using your articles to answer questions that people may type into a search engine, you will draw more people to your blog or website and generate more traffic. Content marketing can be a free or low-cost effective marketing strategy you can implement to help gain more customers and exposure online.

• Cross Promotional Business Collaborations

  Teaming up with other businesses to cross-promote each other's products and businesses can be a very effective and low-cost or free way to gain more customers. By selecting companies that are related to your industry but not in direct competition with your business, you can help each other reach more potential customers that you may not have been able to reach otherwise. By working with a business that is somehow related to yours, their customers will likely also be interested in the products and services that your company offers. An example could be a graphic designer forming a business collaboration with a web designer to cross-promote each other's businesses. Both would likely have customers who may need the services the other business provides. This strategy extends your business's exposure to the other company's marketing efforts and customer base and vice versa.

  You can form multiple business partnerships with various companies you have either done business with in the past or have had no previous contact with before but are in related fields. This is a great way to establish more business contacts and have others help promote your business for you. Another idea is offering referral discounts to customers referred to you by the companies you have formed these cross-promotional partnerships with. In addition to the credibility you will gain from being referred to by another company, a referral discount will offer an extra incentive for new customers to do business with you.

• Customer Referral Program

  Creating a customer referral program and offering your existing customers discounts, special deals, or free products for referring new customers to your business is a great way to help spread the word about your business, retain repeat customers, and gain new customers. By creating a customer referral program, your customers will enthusiastically market your business for you. For example, suppose your existing customers are very satisfied with your products or services and want more of what you have to offer. In that case, they will be incentivized to tell their friends, family, and coworkers about your company and will, in effect, be salespeople for your business. People are more likely to purchase goods and services from a company that people they know recommend and have had positive experiences with. Customer referral programs are a great low-cost and reliable method to help grow your business and gain new customers consistently.

• Attend Trade Shows and Networking Events

  Attending trade shows and networking events can be a dependable way to spread the word about your business. Industry-specific events can expose your business to people interested or involved in your specific industry, and more general events can give you access to a broader audience. Depending on the cost of a booth, setting up a space at a trade show or networking event can be a lower-cost option to get the word out about your business to many people who may be interested. Simply attending an event as an attendee and not as a vendor can also serve as a method to make contacts and hand out business cards to vendors who may be in a related industry or interested in your products or services.

The ideas covered in this article are some great low-cost and effective strategies to help market your business. For more options, please view part two of this article here - https://www.incorp.com/help-center/business-articles/low-cost-marketing-2