Even though more and more companies and startups recognize the importance of good marketing campaigns, there’s not always enough budget for it. Little do people know about low to no cost at all marketing tips that help you grow your small business. Here are 5 tips to help you out without having to break the bank.
Create and publish good content
This, without saying, is one of the most basic and powerful tools that you have in your pockets. Content marketing done right means increased sales, cost savings and better customers who have more loyalty. Creating good quality content is one of the biggest challenges nowadays and in order to be able to create some high-quality content, you need to understand Google’s ultimate aim for search. Your content should be unique with a focus on the client’s needs and intents without being deceiving. Quality and unique content wrapped up in keywords? Yes, as long as it answers the user’s needs and it doesn’t create a “frustrating user experience”. Thus, low-quality content, keyword-loaded won’t help you rank and most likely, as Google refines its algorithm, will be impossible to reach your audience.
Good Content: It’s about user experience, from the length of the article to the language used to the actual information revealed in it. You’re in for the long run so get creative, think outside the box and deliver.
Digital Catalogs
Because images are the new keywords. 93% of the buyers are strongly influenced by visuals like images and video. Digital Catalogs are a great way to reach out to people, and an effortless way for the customer to discover products. More and more direct selling companies choose to add the e-catalogs to their marketing tools. They are easy to create. There is no printing cost and they are at the fingertips of your potential customers. If you want people to be talking about your business, your products, to share them online with friends and get a greater audience, then you should definitely consider going for the digital catalogs. It will increase your online engagement and boost your sales.
Online Contest
Who doesn’t love winning prizes? Freebies are one of the oldest marketing tactics around to raise interest in a product, to promote and make people talk about it. Online contests are all about getting people to learn more about your company and your brand. Contests are fun, exciting and an interactive way to engage with your audience. You should take into account every opportunity to run a contest, be it a special event, a seasonal holiday, you name it. Though you might be used to the “Like, share and comment” campaigns, it’s worth remembering Facebook contest rules and guidelines. The more you get your fans to engage with you during the campaign the better. Ask them to fill the blanks, help you name a product or start a caption contest. These are just a few ideas that have been tested and proven to work. Yet, choose a good prize, run a creative campaign and iterate it.
Email Marketing
It might sound easy but hold your horses, it’s not, not anymore. Each one of us gets invaded with tens of automated emails a day, which we either delete, mark them as read or unsubscribe. The struggle that email marketers have is about improving the open rate, the click rate and, the final goal, the conversion rate. However, the secret to an effective email marketing campaign lays in the following 3 ingredients.
- Personalization and visuals. Address the reader by name, and make sure you have a visual that is relevant to the message you want to send.
- Responsive design. Most of the people would read their emails on the phone or tablet while commuting, watching television or over a coffee. Make sure your email looks good and reads well from all devices on which your customers can read their emails.
- Call-to-Action. I would go as far as to say an email sent without a meaningful call-to-action (CTA), is pointless. Why should the reader care about your email more than others? What is he missing out if he doesn’t act?
Social Media
Everyone is on Social Media, from Facebook, Twitter to Instagram. So, your business should be too. Though you can pay for advertising on social media, you can start by getting an online presence for your company. Let them know you’re out there. Increase your account followers numbers and create content to engage with them.
Encourage customers to leave reviews on your profiles. We all know how much these reviews count for each one of us when we look/shop around.
Be consistent with your posting. It’s about posting regularly – you’ll receive great results with one post each day as long as it’s every day.
There’s always a way mingle around with this marketing tips. Are they free? To some extent yes, of course, the more you put in the more you take out, but these will give you a boost and increase your sales. So, more sales will help you increase the budget for marketing your business. Iterate.
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Written by: Cristina Radu – @Flipsnack.
Summer’s biggest fan & tech geek. Digital Marketer learning and sharing along the way.
