Easy Ideas To Market Your Business On a Budget

These days, a small business needs to be in front of people more frequently than ever before. There are so many distractions that may take the potential customer away from you. Though, as small business owners, we need to have strategies in place to consistently market our small businesses regularly with little money when necessary. Follow along and find out how to market your business on a budget.

Here are 9+ tips to stay on budget while doing small business marketing.

Write Regular Blog Posts

Research other blog sites that are similar to yours. Some of the larger sites are willing to have guest bloggers. Contact the site owners. Be clear on what you want to write about. And create a well-formed email to show your abilities. Also, contact friends and family that may have blogs and ask if they are interested in having a guest blog. It doesn’t hurt to send an email. You may be surprised where an opportunity may come from. We offer lots of blogging tips to help you!

Create an Elevator Pitch.

Before speaking with random people you meet, create a two-sentence description of your service. Make it broad and show compassion and passion for the business. Learn more about it here from MindTools.

Now, you need to learn to small talk with people, especially individuals who have a similar mindset. Keep business cards on hand. Then, hand out business cards where ever you are. Visit our How To Spontaneously Speak With Others post for guidance!

Build an Engaging social media audience.

First, research your social media platforms and decide on the ones you want to engage more with. Look at your Insights or Analytics data to see which platform gives you the most engagement. You don’t need to focus on every platform, only the one that is your top engagement platform.

Build a consistent social media page on each of the leading social media platforms. Stay consistent with your brand color and photos. This tactic will take time to set up, but when you have the template images, you should be able to reuse those images when you need to update them. That is, if the social media site does not change the dimensions of the pictures.

Visit our 6 Social Media Post Ideas for Small Business by Industry for inspiration!

And start using hashtags in every post you make. On Twitter and Instagram social media platforms, it really does amplify your views and the potential of new clients (Affiliate Link) seeing you and your services/products.

Email Friends and Family.

If people don’t know about what you offer, you need to tell them. Introducing them to your services is not selling. It’s offering information, so they can decide if they want more info. Try emailing friends and family about your services. Create a list of potential clients (Affiliate Link), clients (Affiliate Link), friends, and family.  Inform them what clientele you are looking for and remind them what you do. You can even start a mailing list on a contact management site and send regular newsletters about your services and what you are involved in. Make your messages short and to the point. Email marketing tended to be shorter now than a few years ago. Also, adding links to other articles or services in your newsletter does help.

Update Testimonials.

Update Your Client Testimonials on your website. Ensure your testimonials are fresh and there is an area describing what you did for them. Have a least a few testimonials for each service, if possible. Read our post about sending questions that create great testimonials.

Create great blog content more often

Publish great content on your blog and share it with everyone and everywhere. Try submitting blog posts on Reddit. Don’t forget to revisit your existing posts and add content to them—linkbacks to other great content on the subjects. And include links to other related posts on your site. All these things can make your content show more regularly on Google.

Try making Reels and videos on various platforms you enjoy. Remember, if you enjoy the platform, most likely, your client enjoys them also.

Create Sharable Content and Tag Influencers

Create infographics and reach out to popular bloggers to have them promote the infographic for a link back. DIY infographics work well and can be shared all across the internet.  Pinterest is especially ideal for these types of images.

When sharing on social media platforms, tag influencers in your niche to get more viewership for your infographic.

Create an online course.

Reach out to colleagues (Affiliate Link) and create an online course with offers for subscribers. Pick a colleague that complements your services.  Then, together determine what you can talk about with the subscribers.  Make sure you clearly agree on who gets the leads and how you can get them. When you create a course, you may have to pay for the service, but there are other ways around it.

Host a party.

If you sell products, try hosting a party at your home and have samples so people can try the products. This way of promoting a business works perfectly for mompreneurs with many local fans of their business. The customers can invite others and get a special gift.

2023 Market Your Business on a Budget Ideas

Wait, there’s more! Below are some additional ideas to help you market your business on a shoestring budget.

Offer coupons.

Offering coupons during the business season to use in the slow season will balance out your business cyclical cycle. It also helps spread the word about your services. Be sure only to discount your high-ticket services. This will allow for more opportunities to get paid more per service hour, resulting in more money in your pocket for less work.

Update Google My Business Content.

Another idea is to set up Google My Business and share photos and content often. Ask existing and former clients (Affiliate Link) to rate your service and maybe even write you a recommendation statement. Visit our How to Edit My Google Business Profile on Mobile post for more information.

Engage on LinkedIn.

If you work with B2B often or want to, you should be posting on LinkedIn. This network is business focused but can also help you connect to potential colleagues (Affiliate Link) that will spread the word about your business. Sharing posts and commenting on the influencers you follow will get your name out.

Do local SEO.

If you are a local business, you can use Local SEO through Google. You also start a Yelp account so people can share their reviews there. As of writing this post in April 2023, the salon industry is NOT a Google Ads option.

These tasks take time but are usually lower in cost and can help you get your business noticed and help you stay in front of your potential customers. I hope this helps you get your business noticed. But wait, there are even more tips to help you!

Visit these articles for more smart ideas to help you market on a shoestring.

10 Ways to Market Your Business Online for $500

4 Ways to Market Your Startup On the Cheap

10 Ways to Market Your Small Business on a Shoestring Budget

If you are looking for other ways to save money, check out these blog posts on saving money.

How To Make Your Budget More Effective

Make Bookkeeping A Priority

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