Being a small business owner brings forth a zillion challenges your way! It is quite understandable that a small business has a limited marketing budget and at the same time, you need to market your products to remain in the fiercely competitive market.

The biggest question arises in such a tricky situation is that how do you tackle this huge challenge? Here are our top picks regarding marketing strategies for small businesses without making a hole in your pocket!

Direct Mail

Just like print media traditional direct mail is still being used by marketers to sell their products and develop relationships with their customers. There are still ample opportunities in promoting your products by using this method. The simple secret to a successful direct campaign is to be unique and creative in conveying your message across your audience.

In fact, you have to be so convincing for the recipients to open your letters. Right starting out with the envelope, the presentation and the content quality should be compelling enough to generate curiosity within your intended audience and that marks the success of a direct mail campaign.

User Friendly Website 

We live in a digital age. Small businesses which do not have a website cannot expect to have a global reach. They are missing out on a large chunk of the market. Having an attractive and user friendly website is indeed mandatory for the survival of any business in the long run.

A website enables you to showcase your brand, provides info about your product to the online audience, your contact info and enables you to mention prices and testimonials about your product which is vital.

Being on a website doesn’t cost you much money but gives you the advantage of being out there for your customers 24/7 and is one of the best ways of advertising your product. After all, who doesn’t want to show up way up there in the search results of Google, right?  

Google Adwords

Google Adwords has a huge potential to help you get noticed on Google results page when people search queries on the search engine giant. It’s been there since ages and if you know the right method to go about it, it can work wonders for your business to help you get noticed when you advertise your product.

Google assigns a Quality score to every campaign and higher scores ultimately lead to lower bid costs. As a paid advertising method, AdWords enables you to obtain maximum results with a maximum impact for promoting your brand.

Webinars

 

Online Seminars are also called Webinars and they take place in the form of a presentation or discussion. Webinars are seminars talking about any topic in details, while sharing knowledge about it to an online audience addressed by an expert. Arranging webinars surely helps in increasing credibility and building awareness with your current audience and largely with the ones whom you would like to connect with.

Webinars also play the role of being effective lead magnets. They are great for imparting live and at times even recorded training. The interactive questions and answers with response from both the sides makes it more interesting and has a long-lasting impact due to the value the audience receives in such kind of live sessions.

Social Media

Social Media has become an indispensable part and parcel of a company’s promotions strategies now. It comes with no cost and can help small businesses increases audience engagement.

This helps in turn escalate building relationships and promotion to a wider audience. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Snapchat are the most popular ones out there. In fact, being involved in online networking events such as LinkedIn is of prime significance. It is worth making an extra effort to be active on such platforms.

Keeping your business actively present on Social media has become mandatory if you want to remain in the fray with other competitors within your market. The extent of your presence also depends upon your budget which means that paid social media campaigns can also be created, besides being actively involved in organic social media. Facebook also offers paid advertising which is quite popular with the audience and so does YouTube.

Email Marketing

Email Marketing is here to stay! In reality, It remains one of the best methods to convert leads even on a shoe string budget. It involves including new products, special promotions, offers or any other new updates regarding your product or services for your audience so that they click through your website.

A lead magnet remains the major cornerstone of an email campaign which is that compelling offer specially catering to your audience. A lead magnet can be a free digital download or a free service trial or even a coupon. Email marketing results can be measured, tracked and analyzed to assess the performance of the campaigns. The low cost, wide segmentation and global reach makes email marketing one of the most popular methods till date.

Partner with Other Businesses

 

In certain cases, it has been seen that a deadly combination of knowledge and resources with other organizations ultimately brings awesome benefits for both the parties. All you need to do is to identify a specific segment of the business which looks complementary to another company and if both gel well, you will be able to start a great business tie-up when both companies work on the marketing promotions.

In fact, this great teamwork can be quite effective by combining resources with the other business. The best targets are the local companies within your area and it should be a non-competitor which when tapped into, ultimately can provide endless possibilities.

Google MyBusiness

Google offers a free and cost effective way to list your small business through Google MyBusiness. This way you gain visibility immediately while targeting local clients. Small Businesses which aim to target local customers can benefit in a humongous way by using this powerful strategy. This combines various Google platforms namely Google Plus, Google Maps, Reviews and more into one central place. 

In fact to rank your Google MyBusiness Profile is not very tough. All you have to do is optimizing your profile and then creating reviews from your previous users. It is a platform which not only gives a business good visibility, but also creates credibility and trust among future audience.

Meaningful and Relevant Content

You should have the latest and relevant content posted on your website. The content should be able to attract users to your website and make you stand out from others. It is natural that unique and valuable content needs to be generated which arouses interest among your viewers and brings value to them.

Starting a company blog on the website is also a good idea so that you will be able to write articles related to your niche which will help bring a clearly defined audience and boost lead generation. In fact, you should be able to position you and your business as an expert in the specific niche.

Attend Networking Events

We live in truly a digital age, however traditional networking still holds utmost significance to increase our audience. This method can be quite effective for generating leads which can later convert into great customers. Initiating conversations with like-minded people who are themselves startup owners or interested in your subject can yield surprising results for your business.

Attending such events brings you in contact with lot of people who further might have a network of their own and that can contribute to the beginning of a mutual business relationship. The way to go about it is to do a search on the major significant networking events in your local area and then go from there.

Do not miss bringing a bunch of business cards to the events! In fact, you can also work into your way if someone invites you for being a speaker to a local event within your niche.

Print Media

Print media still exists and is prevalent and popular in certain niches even today. Though the reality of today is that the print media continues to shrink in terms of popularity, for small businesses the best strategy would be to use it in conjunction with online advertising.

This will create an engaging experience for the intended audience. The costs associated with print media have decreased so it is usually possible to run effective ads at reasonable prices which can be afforded by small businesses.

As a growing business, do you want to imbibe all those leadership qualities which successful people have? If yes, watch this video: