Low cost ways to market your small business
The key to growing your small business is to be able to market and gain more customers. However, small business owners face numerous challenges in how to get their marketing message out. The main challenge is usually a small marketing budget. However, the good news is that there are many low cost ways that you can market your small business and still get effective results. Successful small business owners have shown that by using some creativity and planning you can market your small business even while using the smallest marketing budget. Here are some tips to get you started-
- Offer the best customer service-Many small business owners overlook one of the cheapest and easiest ways to market their business. When you are offering the best customer service your customers are not only more likely to return to buy from you again but they are far more likely to tell their family and friends about their experience with you. Good customer service costs you nothing and yet it can have big returns. Studies show that a majority of customers will return to purchase again from a business even if they don't have the lowest price but rather because they offer the best customer service.
- Go online-Online marketing has shown to be a highly cost effective way to market your small business. If your small business doesn't have an online presence it should get one immediately. You can quickly expand your marketing message and reach far more people when you market online. The first thing to do is to set up a website for your small business. There are many online templates that can help you do this for free. Then you can begin to expand your online presence with a business blog, using social media networking, and even email and text marketing. Best of all, most of these forms of online marketing cost very little to get into. However, it should be stressed that in order for online marketing to be effective you will need to make sure that someone is dedicated to keeping your online content relevant and up to date. If you fail to do this your customers will quickly tire of your marketing efforts and move on.
- Consider co-op marketing-Many times small businesses can join together and pool their resources for more effective marketing. Whether you are looking for something like bulk ordering on marketing products or want to do a special event joining with another small business can help you make it happen. By putting together your resources with another small business (or more), you can access to marketing methods that may have seemed out of reach on your own. Don't be hesitant about approaching other small business owners as most likely they are wondering how they can stretch their marketing budgets, as well. Keep in mind that your co-op marketing doesn't have to be complicated. It can be as simple as you putting in another business' card with your outgoing mail and they doing the same for you.
- Offer a special event that is focused on education-One of the best ways to market your small business is to offer something that gets your customers in the door. You can offer a class, a special exhibit or a seminar on something that your customers would be interested in. The main advantage to this is that it gets your customers into your store. Keep in mind that the key to making this successful is to focus in on something that your customers would find valuable. If you fail to offer something of value you could do serious damage to the reputation of your small business.