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Sourced from BOSS Magazine

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to promote your business without breaking the bank.

As a business owner, you know that promotion is essential to keeping your business afloat. But what do you do when you don’t have a lot of money to spend on marketing? Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to promote your business without breaking the bank. We delve into some budget-friendly ways to get the word out about your business without spending a fortune.

Give away free stuff

Who doesn’t love freebies? Offering promotional items like quality lighters by IGO Promo emblazoned with your company logo is a great way to get people interested in your business. You can hand them out at trade shows or other events, or include them in direct mail campaigns. Just make sure you choose items that will be used and appreciated — no one wants another cheap keychain that’s going to end up in the bottom of a messy drawer somewhere.

Get involved in your local community

One great way to promote your small business is to get involved in your local community. Volunteer for a charity that is relevant to your business, sponsor a small league team or participate in a community event. Not only will this help you raise awareness for your business, but it will also give you the opportunity to build relationships with potential and current customers. Plus, it’s a great way to show your employees that you’re invested in more than just the bottom line.

Create a great website

In today’s digital age, every business needs to have an outstanding website. Your website should be user-friendly, visually appealing, and informative. Include clear calls to action, plenty of contact information and compelling content that will make people want to do business with you. This will not only help you attract new customers, but it will also help you retain the ones you already have. There are plenty of budget-friendly website builders out there, so there’s no excuse for having a less-than-stellar website.

Use social media wisely

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram provide tremendous opportunities for promoting your business on a budget. Just make sure you’re using them wisely. Posting too often or failing to engage with your followers will quickly lead to people tuning you out. Instead, focus on creating quality content that provides value and promoting special offers or discounts that will appeal to your target audience.

Get listed in online directories

Most people nowadays use the internet when they’re looking for local businesses. That’s why it’s important to make sure your business is listed in online directories like Google My Business, Yelp, Bing Places for Business, and Yahoo Business Listings. These listings are free and can help potential customers find you when they’re searching online for businesses like yours. Plus, being listed in these directories can also help improve your search engine ranking — another great way to attract new customers.

Network, network, network!

Meeting new people is always good for business — you never know when you might meet someone who’s interested in what you have to offer. Attend local Chamber of Commerce meetings or other networking events where you’ll have the opportunity to connect with other small business owners and potential customers in person. You can also join relevant online communities and forums where you can share your expert insights and connect with people from all over the world.

As you can see, there are plenty of ways to promote your small business without spending a fortune. So get out there and start spreading the word about your business! It’s sure to pay off in the long run.

Sourced from BOSS Magazine

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Many businesses have to squeeze out expenses to break-even and start making a profit. Unfortunately, some important processes, such as marketing, go underfunded.

However, that doesn’t have to be the case. There are several ingenious low-cost strategies to promote your business while you’re on a tight budget. You just need to start small and you’ll be able to scale up as you go.

Here are seven cost-effective strategies that will attract customers to your business. Your main goal should be to scale up the process so that you get more revenue by applying all these techniques consistently. The cycle will spiral upwards, later on, bringing you more clients each time.

1. Create engaging online content

Time; that’s the only thing you’ll need to start producing excellent content. Running a blog is quite easy nowadays. There are many templates available and you don’t have to worry about hosting. Many blog hosts offer free hosting without premium features. Zero capital for starters, that only requires effort. If you decide to improve things down the line, you can hire remote employees.

You need one or two outstanding writers. Plus, an editor and a graphic designer would also be useful additions. The good news is that most of them work as freelancers, meaning, you get to pay for services only when you need them.

Always make sure the content aligns with your product or service. Research extensively and give customers what you’d consider reading yourself. Some ways to keep content engaging is through:

  • Sharing useful tips across articles
  • Adding an FAQ section with detailed answers
  • Incorporating lists, graphic assets, and multimedia
  • Listing best practices in your industry
  • Highlighting key points and crucial ideas

Now, regarding your potential earnings, the following chart shows the average revenue possible for ~60% of the population who is willing to publish 3 pieces of valuable content a week, as you can see the profits are considerable:

shoestring-budget-own-elaboration-based-on-data-by-financial-samurai

Image Source: Financial Samurai

2. Do cold calling

There are many agencies and marketplaces that offer professional cold calling services. You brief them on what you are offering, pay a fee, and they’ll do the magic. If you cannot afford such services, you can do this in-house.

All you need is to research the best cold calling practices. Then, prepare scripts to ensure consistency in your message. Stay courteous on the phone, explain things patiently, and you will start seeing your first leads. Just keep in mind that cold-calling is a number’s game.

You can also consider incorporating cold emailing. It works the same way as cold calling only that you do not get instant feedback. Send out emails to prospects, then wait a few days to send follow-ups when there’s no reply. There are many options to automate this process, which will save you a good amount of time.

3. Leverage referrals

One of the oldest ways of promotion is through word of mouth. Encourage your satisfied customers to spread the word. After all, any product is best understood by those that use it.

Referral programs are quite flexible so you can be very creative with them. Giving rewards is the best way to do it. Here are some ways of using rewards in your customer referral programs:

  • Have giveaways for customers with the most number of referrals.
  • Give customers and those whom they refer, a percentage discount.
  • Give some free products/services to customers with a certain number of referrals.
  • Make a scoring system with hierarchies to make customers gain points and upgrade their status, unlocking additional benefits.

4. Apply for awards

There are many companies that offer online awards to businesses of different niches. Find one related to your industry. Showing that you have awards boosts trust ratings among your potential customers.

Some awards are easier to get, whereas some have very rigorous criteria. Getting those harder awards will definitely grant you trustworthiness, and customers recognize that. This increases your business reputation.

If awarded, the organizations share your business information on their site and social media platforms. That drives more traffic to your business. Thus, bringing prospects your way.

If you are granted an award, here are some things worth doing to take full advantage:

  • Share the announcement on your website and social media
  • Prepare a well-written press release
  • Write a blog post expressing your gratitude for the award by outlining what it means to your business
  • If the award comes with a badge, place it strategically on your site

5. Strengthen your business through partnerships

When people come together costs are easier to bear. Team up with other local businesses and do joint campaigns. It applies to businesses relevant to your industry.

Don’t go about it blindly though, you need businesses that complement yours. For example a wedding photographer can team up with a wedding planner and a wedding dress designer.

Such partnerships will widen your customer database. Your partners’ customers trust them, so your information shared on their platforms gets easily trusted too.

6. Stay active on social media

Let’s take a look at some amazing stats shared by Oberlo to give you an idea of how massively important social media (SM) is for businesses:

shoestring-budget-oberlo-social-media-users-data

As you can see, social media is probably the biggest marketplace in the world right now, and it is no longer just about replying to messages and posting content. People want to establish meaningful relationships. Therefore, you need to take the time to know your customers, get them to know your business and cultivate a loyal customer base. This requires you to stay constantly active.

Understand your followers and people who interact with your content. Engage with them often and listen to the feedback given. Act on such feedback and show that you care about your customers and value their opinions.

In order to improve engagement consider introducing fun activities. Social media contests are an outstanding example. They keep your customers engaged, they’re fun, and some customers get to take cool prizes back home.

This is an easy low-cost strategy that will help you build your online reputation, which is more important. With time, word will spread, and soon you’ll have your website visits exploding. The conversion rate also skyrockets as long as you take the time to cultivate relationships.

7. Get involved in your local community

While staying active online brings customers from all corners of the globe, your local community is equally important. They probably formed your initial customer base and might be your most loyal customers.

It’s important that you keep them engaged as well. Take part in local fairs and events. It keeps your business fresh in their memory and provides you a platform to introduce fresh developments.

Carry some business cards and posters when you attend local events. Also, don’t simply dish them out. Make meaningful conversations with prospects as you would with online followers. Only this time you are doing it in person, so facial expressions and other non-verbal cues matter.

Conclusion

Most of what is listed above requires exclusively effort or very low investment. Experiment with each strategy and you will soon realize that you don’t need a super large budget to promote your business.

It’s often through simple interactions that you create long-lasting impressions. Add a little creativity into the process and you will never run short of a constant customer flow. By the time you decide to scale up, you will have gained not only some stability but also a great deal of experience.

By

Guest author: Bryan Osorio is a Blogger, SEO enthusiast, Content Marketer, and Digital Marketer with 3 years of experience within the Tech and Digital Marketing Industry. He likes to read, write and talk about Science, Technology, AI, Video Games, World News, and more. He studied Psychology at the National University of Colombia and enjoys writing about leadership, remote work, team motivation and others.

Sourced from Jeff Bullas

By Thomas Griffin,

When trying to get the word out about your business, you might feel discouraged by all the competition out there. Thanks to the rise of social media over the last decade, Twitter and platforms like it are no longer just for user entertainment; rather, businesses can benefit from using them to promote their brands and further their reach. With more than 330 million monthly active users, there are endless opportunities to meet your objectives.

Twitter is a valuable resource you can use to reach your desired business goals, but if it isn’t used correctly, you’ll fail to see positive results and return on investment (ROI). It’s a great asset to have to promote your business because its users are constantly looking for new, fresh content to devour from brands they love, and that brand could very well be your own.

Let’s look at the different ways you can leverage your Twitter profile to promote your business and drive results.

Lay out your goals.

No matter where your business is at in terms of success, it’s essential when you create your business account that you know what you want to accomplish with it. Without a clear idea of the results you want to see, it’s difficult to form a marketing strategy that helps you reach your objectives.

What do you hope to achieve through your Twitter account? A few common goals businesses have with their profiles are:

  • Providing customer service
  • Furthering reach
  • Increasing sales
  • Building brand awareness
  • Keeping up with industry trends
  • Improving engagement rates

Once you know exactly what you’re trying to accomplish, it’ll be that much easier to create content that brings you closer to reaching your goals.

Optimize your profile.

Promoting your brand doesn’t just have to do with creating a content marketing strategy and posting as frequently as possible. If you don’t have a solid foundation to go off of first and foremost, very few people in your target audience will be able to find you in the first place. That’s why you need to optimize your Twitter profile.

There are several components to pay attention to within your Twitter profile, including the:

  • Bio
  • Header image
  • Profile picture
  • Location
  • Website

It’s important to note that while filling out all the information you can is important, offering value straight off the bat is the most important thing you can do for your profile. Instead of simply stating what your business does or what niche it’s in, go a little further and tell users how it benefits them.

Turn on Twitter analytics.

How beneficial would it be if you could see exactly how your followers interact with your social media content? Thanks to Twitter analytics, you can monitor user engagement, explore your audience’s demographics and measure individual tweet activity. With this information readily available, you’re able to decipher what they’re most interested in and what they don’t care much about, which helps you create a refined content marketing strategy that boosts your following.

It’s essential to track your social analytics and monitor them regularly because, just like your brand grows, so will your audience’s interests and needs. Without staying on top of the content they’re most engaged with, you won’t be able to optimize your content marketing strategy accordingly.

Add video.

If you want to increase engagement on your posts, incorporate more video content. Twitter reports that tweets with video are six times more likely to be retweeted than tweets with photo and three times more likely to be retweeted than GIFs. Your videos should be relevant to the post you’re creating and spark interest in your audience enough to boost engagement.

Coca-Cola used video in its ads and, as a result, received a 53 percent viewing rate from its target market. Video, and visual content in general, outperforms other types of media because it’s good at catching people’s attention and keeping it there. Make sure your video content isn’t too long, preferably no longer than a minute, so users don’t lose interest and are encouraged to check out your brand further.

When done correctly, businesses can use Twitter as a valuable avenue to increase engagement, improve ROI and build brand awareness. It’s essential to optimize your profile, monitor analytics and incorporate video into your content marketing strategy if you want to have the best possible chance of reaching your target market and achieving your goals.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Thomas Griffin

Thomas Griffin is co-founder and president of OptinMonster. He is an expert software architect with a deep knowledge of building products for the mass market.

Sourced from Inc.