There are several ways you can market your business on a tight budget. Here are five cost-effective tips that you can use to kick start your marketing campaign and expand your client base.
When it comes to marketing your business there are many different options and strategies that each have their benefits. Even if you have enough capital and marketing dollars to fund an expensive and large marketing campaign you can usually achieve your marketing objectives by exhausting less expensive but equally effective options first.
Five Inexpensive but Effective Marketing Tips for Businesses on a Budget
1) Contact your existing clients and offer them discounts on services or products in exchange for referrals.
The establishment of an affiliates or referral program is an inexpensive way to foster new business. This tactic is great because it encourages old or existing customers to use or buy your products and services again while bringing you new clients. Another advantage with this approach is that the discount you offer your clients for the referral does not have to be substantial since they have already used or purchased your services or products at full price before. By offering them a discount or other incentive you are able to entice your previous customers to return and bring you new customers at the same time.
2) Stop marketing to customers who are unprofitable.
Many business owners have this idea that the more sales or clients you have the more successful your business is or will become however many business owners waste a significant amount of time, energy, and money with “break-even” customers. Essentially, you will be far better off if you market your products or services to new prospects than you would be to continue servicing or marketing to customers that are using more of your resources than they are contributing. Of course the familiar saying “It is less expensive to keep an existing customer than it is to find a new one” still rings true; however more often than not you will find that there are quite a few clients that are costing you as much or more than what you are investing in keeping them as clients. One easy way to curb this or at least minimize the impacts is to keep detailed records on all aspects of your business in order to determine which customers are break-even customers and which ones are worth a more serious investment and more marketing efforts.
3) Contact local media networks.
Local editorials convey far more credibility with prospective clients than paid advertising. Contact your local newspaper about running an interview about your business. Of course you will have to give them something to write about and it will have to be news worthy. Perhaps the new release of a service or product that benefits the community, some recent charity work, or even the launch of your business just to suggest a few. Also, preparing a press-release and other information destined for the media will increase your changes of getting published. In many cases, if you submit a ready-to-be-printed article your changes of getting printed are increased as local papers etc. often have “spots” that need to be filled from time to time. Why not help them fill that spot with your editorial.
4) Don’t let your customers fall through the cracks and slip away.
We have already covered the benefits of putting more effort, money, and time into customers that are profitable vs. those that are not, however every successful business owner knows the advantages of hanging onto clients that are worth hanging onto and you will most likely be able to distinguish between the two the longer you are in business. It is true that it costs far less to retain an existing customer (whether inactive or disgruntled) than to acquire a new one although you will need to use your business intuition to determine which ones are worth the investment of time, energy, and money. Send a personalized email or card, make a brief telephone call to see if all is well, or even send a small gift or discount card/customer appreciation card to let them know that you are and should still be a part of their day to day life.
5) Put your information on everything you hand out.
Put all of your contact details on every promotional material, letterhead, envelope, car door etc. that is used for your business. This may seem like common sense but you would be surprised at how many times we have received a business owner’s promotional materials with missing information or watched them drive past in an unbranded vehicle. Of course there are some objects such as vehicles that may be used for personal use as well so you would not want to permanently brand the object; however there are always alternatives. For example, you may share your vehicle with your spouse and would not want to invest in a vehicle wrap that permanently (can be removed but not easily or inexpensively) displays your company information. An inexpensive and easily removable solution is to invest in vehicle magnets. There is really no reason why you should be traveling in a vehicle without displaying your company phone number, email, website, address, or at least your logo. Furthermore, only under extremely rare circumstances should you continue to distribute promotional materials with missing information. If you have a website then it should be clearly printed on every piece of paper, business card, envelope, or other item that you hand out. If you have recently acquired a company website but you still have thousands of business cards without this piece of information then you should order new ones with the website and put the old ones on reserve. Notice that I said reserve and not to toss them away. The reason you should keep the old ones is because they still have value, just not as much value as the new ones. Of course if you have paid for your website and/or would like customers to visit the website then you would not be doing your business or yourself any favours if you continued to hand out the promotional materials without the website address. The old ones are handy for specific circumstances and therefore are still valuable business tools. For example, you may find yourself in a situation where you are speaking with clients who would not be interested in visiting your website or do not have internet access. These are the perfect situations to distribute the old cards. Additionally, you can use them to give to acquaintances that have requested your number on a personal/friendship level. This serves two purposes: A) your acquaintance now has your contact details and will be able to contact you, and B) your acquaintenance may show the card to someone who would want your services or products or your acquaintance may even purchase or use your services or products themselves.
Conclusion
While these five steps may or may not benefit your particular situation, every business owner (like Owen Tripp) should invest some time in considering alternatives to expensive marketing strategies in order to utilize available resources and tools. There is no right or wrong approach to marketing as there are too many variables. The important thing to remember is to keep detailed records and statistics of your business practices, previous marketing strategies/results, customers and conversion stats, and any other form of data that can help to minimize the risks associated with marketing campaigns. Furthermore proper research, brainstorming, and a closer look at traditional forms of marketing can often yield great results while keeping within a small budget.