If you understand the concept of marketing as opposed to advertisement, you won’t feel so overwhelmed by assuming that it will require tons of money. When you are starting your business, you may think it’s a paramount task to get the world to know your company. It seems like with large corporations spending millions on advertisement budgets, you won’t accomplish anything with the tiny modest budget of a starting entrepreneur. Well, you are wrong.
For years small business owners have used some tricks that promote growth with small cash investments in marketing. Here are a few of those tricks.
Attend Networking Events
When you have limited resources in the beginning of your business’ life, the best thing you can do is expand the network of your contacts. Check out meetup websites for events in your locale. They are sorted by activity types and there you can find your target audience. If you can’t find any network events you like, make your own. Who knows, maybe your network idea will pick up and turn into a huge social event in your home town.
In any case, get out there and meet new people, exchange ideas, find new friends. You never know where the next great marketing idea for your business may come from. Even if you don’t find new customers directly, you never know to whom your new friends and contacts may lead.
Sponsor Your Own
You can organize some event at your community to benefit people living around you. And being a sponsor and organizer of such an event will stick in people’s heads, no doubt about it. It is always a noble cause to help your community. And you want to create a positive image for your new business.
Host a seminar
When you host a topic seminar, you educate people on the topic related to your business and inconspicuously advertise your products or services. It’s also a great opportunity to invite some of your best clients and their families or friends to attend. This way you will keep extending your network, distribute knowledge about your product and business, and you will also get great first-hand feedback from them, as well as get to know them and their needs better.
Be Social
It does not cost a whole lot, but it is a very effective marketing tool. Posting regular updates with news or just interesting topic posts on Facebook or Twitter reminds your clients about you. The same goes for LinkedIn. And if you invest in sponsored posts you will have exposure to thousands of prospective customers in your target audience every month. They can be about your brand, products or services. Just a small investment can add hundreds of new followers and increase traffic to your website, eventually leading to new sales for your business.
Due to high popularity with end customers and buyers (LinkedIn) social networks have become the greatest and most effective marketing tool for small business owners. Apart from being very cheap, these tools allow you to narrow down your target audience based on demographics criteria.
Send Weekly Emails
Weekly newsletter emails are a great marketing tool for budding businesses. They cost little, but provide a powerful effect. You remind your customers about your presence and give them interesting information. With passage of time your regular emails become sort of a friend they are already accustomed to and waiting to see every week. It makes them feel that everything is stable, life goes on. And your brand becomes a part of that stable world and part of their life. Big companies spend millions on this type of reminder with TV ads and billboards. While you can do it with a fraction of their budget.
