Many small businesses are struggling right now with the challenge of basic survival combined with the need to generate new business. I understand those challenges and want to share with my readers some “no-to-low” cost marketing initiatives, many of which require simply an investment of your time.
First and foremost, for any online marketing initiative to be effective, your website has to be ready to receive your buyers – professional look and feel, easy to interact with and navigate, and filled with all the right content that persuades, motivates and guides them to do business with you. Enough said. You get my point.
Google Local Business Center
Register your company with the Google Local Business Center and put your business on Google Maps. http://www.google.com/local/add?hl=en&gl=us.
LinkedIn Professional Network
Unlike Facebook (not knocking it but it think the business use for Facebook is too niche for this post), www.LinkedIn.com is really a professional networking site that allows you to create a profile and build your professional network. Promote yourself, your employees and your company. You can also choose to join groups where you can let others get a better understanding of your knowledge and skills. Always Include a link to your website.
Open up a www.Twitter.com account for your company and post your company news and announcements like new products, new hires, promotions, or event information. Put a link to your website from your Twitter account, describe your company in the Bio and use your logo for your icon.
Twibes
Join a Twibe (twibe.com), which is a like-minded group of Twitter members. There are all sorts of Twibes in existence, such as industrial, but you are free to start one to suit your business.
YouTube
If you are able to produce an instructional video that demonstrates your service or product make it available at www.YouTube.com. Include a link to your website.
Blogging
There are two approaches here: 1) post a comment with a link to your website on a blog you know your buyer groups are reading or 2) start your own blog and invite or attract your buyer groups to read it. Depending on how you craft your titles you may even get some good ranking in Google once you build up your readership.
Sponsor a Local Charity Event
It doesn’t have to cost you a lot of money but it does have to be well-organized and well-publicized through your local media. Organize volunteers and invite local merchants to participate. Figure out what you can do to brand yourself at the event and what you can give out or offer that will keep you on peoples minds post event.
Develop a Referral Program
Decide how you could reward customers for referring your company to others. If possible, add a tool to your website that makes it easy for customers to participate.
There are more and more innovative marketing opportunities presenting themselves everyday. The ones in this post were to get your ideas flowing and to challenge you to envision what you can do in your market to stand out above the rest while working within a tight budget.
Comment your thoughts, suggestions or success stories.
The referral program sounds interesting. Without going into my business specifics, can you elaborate on how one of these might work?
Hi Gareth,
The concept is to offer some kind of reward to have one customer recommend your business to another customer.
Typically, these rewards still cost less than marketing cold to a group of prospects, so the marketing dollars invested per customer decreases.
Aside from doing everything you can to make your customers experience with you so incredible that they are simply drawn to speak about it with others and share their experience (this is the best form of referral by far), there are many approaches one may take toward structuring a program and customizing it to fit their target result.
If you are going to create a referral program that includes rewards, make sure your rewards are appropriate. They need to be substantial enough to make it worth while for the referrer, but unless you are using it as a loss leader to earn market share, make sure your program does not eat up all your profits.
The reward should also be contingent on a purchase, or some specific action, but not so difficult that it seems unlikely to happen.
Depending on your business, this may be something like a referral card you hand out to a customer and log the card number so that a new customer presenting it gives credit ($100 off next purchase etc.) to the referrer.
I just wanted to take a moment to say that I have been reading your posts lately, and I greatly enjoy not only the information that you provide, but your writing style in general. For people who have been trying to work from home successfully, your site is a great resource. You know as well as I do that working online often can be frustrating and the desire to just give up on it due to not making much money often looms in the back of your mind. Until a marketer finds their niche, focuses on it, and makes their first sale, they often are reluctant to believe that money can indeed be made online.
Stacey