Every business is constantly looking exposure and needs to promote themselves to attract interest, create buzz and find new customers. However, businesses along with newer start-ups who happens to be a little cash strapped in paying for promotion, often find it difficult to devote capital towards at times expensive marketing campaigns. But there are some excellent ways as well as some great ideas which won’t cost you a fortune.
Building A Network
Whether you’re working in person or online, networking has been and always will be one of the most effective as well as essential marketing steps which you as a business owner can perform, and for the most part, all it takes is a bit of effort and time making it extremely cost effective.
So begin by attending trade shows, industry meet-ups or seminars which focuses on your business or niche, and pass out your brochures as well as business cards and begin to mingle. Be on the constant lookout for other business orientated events locally which are likely to attract potential customers as well as influencers. You will then be able to introduce yourself to experienced established business people who’ll be able to give you leads or tips to help your business.
Starting A Contest Or Giveaways
If you’re looking for a way to promote your business or a particular product or service online or locally, you can create buzz by having a scavenger hunt throughout your city. As a promotion, you can give away products or prizes and use Twitter to give out clues on where they are located.
The entire event could be on a sunny Sunday and would just take a few hours of everyone’s time. You can even get local bloggers to broadcast the event by writing about it, which should generate additional interest.
Contests and giveaways are excellent ways to generate customers and getting them involved as well as excited about your product or service, and it can cost very little as well, especially when you decide to use news or press releases, e-mail broadcasting and social media outlets for promotion.
Go Social, Heck Everyone Else Is
Whatever type of business that you may have, online or local, the chances are very good that your current customers as well as your prospects use social media of some type. The majority of business to business companies will often find success on sites such as LinkedIn as well as Twitter and Facebook.
Facebook and Twitter are most often the favorites for these business to consumer based product or service based companies. So it’s recommended that you build a Fan or Profile Page based on your business and provide interesting relevant content with special offers or contests for your followers.
However, you’ll need to be very specific and precise in what you’re doing as well as who you’re planning on targeting. As an example, you should be targeting trending topics as well as trying to attract people who are in your local area who you can follow and then build relationships with while on Twitter.
Reward Your Loyal Customers
As much as possible, attempt to remind all of your customers to refer or recommend your business to others, such as their friends and family, and then reward them for their trouble in some way once they do. You can create a special tracking system for your business which connects to a loyalty program once a client makes a referral.
You might offer a discount or a small gift for these referrals or just for their repeated business. At the very least, make sure that you thank your customers for they referring your business to others and continuing to come back.
Become A Publicity Hound
You can issue news as well as press releases when your business has an important announcement or even for new product or service introductions. You can also write and then submit blog posts or articles to the appropriate online media sources. An excellent free source to do this, which will connect sources directly to journalists who are seeking specific expertise is ReporterConnection.com, which is a great service.
Yes, People Still Do Barter
To get additional promotional marketing or advertising, you can check out the various barter networks on the Internet, which allows you to trade some of your goods or services for material which you need to succeed, such as marketing. The most popular of these barter networks are BarterWorks and The Barter Network.