Marketing a small business is tough when running on a shoestring budget and trying to maximize your profits first. However, marketing doesn’t have to be super expensive if you take advantage of all the modern tools and resources available to you today.
Here are a few of my favorite marketing strategies that you can implement for less than $100/month. Use these tips to bring in customers without spending more than you can afford.
1. Begin With Market Research
Market research doesn’t have to cost anything and it can help you spend the rest of your marketing budget far more effectively. Find out as much as you can about your customers so you can focus your marketing efforts on the demographics most likely to respond to your message.
You can learn things about your target market by hanging out with them on social media and especially paying attention to the conversation in Facebook groups. You can also use Google Analytics data and Quantcast.
Quantcast is one of my favorite free sites to use to measure audience insights and go over advertising analytics. It takes a few days to set up and gather data, but it can tell you tons of details about the people who visit your website down to the type of car they drive.
2. Use Email Marketing to Market Your Small Business
Email marketing is extremely effective for small businesses, even those with tiny budgets. According to studies, email marketing generates an average return of $44.25 for every $1 spent.
In other words, having an email list is a must! Targeting an email marketing campaign to a list of up to 5,000 people can cost as little as $20-$50 per month depending on the platform and it will be money well spent because it’s much cheaper than using direct mail to reach people.
3. Optimize Your Web Content
When your customers search online for keywords related to your business, what do they find? Creating keyword-rich content for your website is a great way to improve its visibility in search results. SEO which stands for search engine optimization involves optimizing your website so it appears prominently in search results.
Organic SEO costs nothing and takes a while to start working but it’s worth it in the end. When you improve your site’s SEO, it can be an extremely effective way of increasing the number of people visiting your site and learning about your small or local business.
4. Embrace Social Media Advertising
Forget print ads, flyers, and even expensive pay-per-click advertising. Social media is now one of the best places for marketing and advertising. Spending just $50 per month on Facebook ads and boosting posts could result in thousands of impressions on your target audience and quite a few sales as well. If your target market includes business buyers, consider advertising on LinkedIn, which is the world’s largest professional online network.
Summary:
You don’t need a large budget to effectively market a small business. By embracing email marketing and social media marketing, you can connect with your target audience. Search engine optimization is another great way to improve your brand visibility, bringing more traffic to your website so you can convert them into paying customers.
