As a social media marketing agency that specializes in working with small businesses, we are often asked how an entrepreneur can effectively market and scale up their business with a limited budget – especially when they are just getting started.
It’s true that when you don’t have a big budget, marketing can be a challenge, but there are quite a few things a small business owner can do to attract and maintain a customer base.
An essential thing to do before you begin marketing your product is to create a buyer persona. Simply put, a buyer persona is a detailed description of the typical person who represents your target audience. You’ll want to think and speak about this ideal customer as if they were a real person. This will allow you to craft marketing messages targeted specifically to them.
When creating the buyer persona some questions you need to answer are:
- What are the demographics that define your ideal customer?
- Where do they live?
- What is their age range?
- What is their level of disposable income?
- Where do they hang out online?
- How do they search for products like yours?
Once you’ve identified your ideal customer, you’ll have a wide choice of marketing methods.
While not an exhaustive list here are 8 inexpensive – some are even free – marketing techniques your business can, and should, do right now that will lead to long-term growth and sustainability.
Social Media
The rise in digital marketing has made it easier for small business owners to find a way to create a presence and attract informed buyers. Having your own social media presence lets you craft your message and share updates frequently. It also allows you to build a community around your brand, company, and product.
Social media can be a great place to build user-generated content, get feedback or even address customer service concerns. Today, most consumers also look to your social media to see if they can trust your brand or company or to check out their reviews, so maintaining a presence can actually help conversion rates. And, best of all for you, social media accounts are free!
Some of the most common social media sites are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tik Tok, Pinterest, Twitter, and Snapchat. The buyer persona you developed will tell you which channels you need to use to reach your ideal customer.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Today, everyone (well, almost everyone) searches for information online, and organic searches can account for the majority of your website’s traffic. This makes optimizing your website for SEO extremely important.
When building your website make sure that it’s structured to communicate your message to your prospects and customers, and orient the optimization toward making the user experience better. Remember that SEO is about helping search engines understand and present content.
Through strategic SEO, you can introduce yourself to prospects who need your products and are intending to make a purchase. Moreover, if a customer searches for help with a problem and your website comes up, this helps position you as a credible, trustworthy source to help them.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a way to engage your audience and raise your number of clients based on relevant and valuable content creation. This strategy is can attract, involve and create value for your brand’s audience. It builds a positive perception of your brand and generates more business for your enterprise.
Unlike paid advertising, content marketing focuses more on long-term results. The initial payoff tends to be low, but the long-term, sustainable growth in visitors, leads, and customers can help carry your business over time.
Instead of pitching your products or services, you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues. With Content Marketing, your brand can gain more relevance and visibility online.
One thing to remember is that Content Marketing is not limited to just blog posts. A successful strategy will include videos, podcasts, online courses, and a host of other mediums in which people consume information.
Networking
Joining local business groups will give you the opportunity to meet up with other like-minded people who already share some common ground with you: owning a business. While a lot of groups exist, there might also be some niche-specific groups and meetups in your area. These groups are a great opportunity to bounce ideas off other smart people, share referrals, find talent, and identify new opportunities.
Connections tend to multiply, and if your group takes networking seriously, you can leverage your seemingly minor connections into significant business opportunities. One thing to remember about networking is that your competition is not always your enemy. If you are too busy to take a job, throw it their way. Most times, you will find the favor returned.
Digital Advertising
Digital advertising is one of the most effective and relatively inexpensive ways to reach prospects for your goods and services. The most common place to advertise digitally is on Facebook and their step-child, Instagram. As of April 2022, Facebook has almost 3 billion users and is still the most used social media platform in the world.
Facebook ads excel at advanced targeting. They allow you to target a specific audience based on location, interests, age, sex, online behavior, and many other factors. You can also advertise on other social media channels such as LinkedIn, Google, and Twitter. Successful ad campaigns will also incorporate email drips to your prospects.
The basics of digital advertising are not that hard. But to really be successful in the long run this is a marketing technique where you should strongly consider setting a budget and bringing in a professional to design, run, and monitor your ad campaigns.
Email Marketing
If you’ve built your email list right, you’ve gathered a group of people who have expressed some interest in your company or product. By segmenting this group based on different characteristics and then emailing them with the right content and offers at the right time in their customer journey, you can influence a purchase decision successfully with no added impact on your marketing budget.
Because most people who visit your site will not buy from you immediately, email marketing is the cornerstone of digital marketing. Capturing contact info for additional marketing and “lead nurturing” is one of the best ways to connect with and convert your prospects into customers.
Following Up
Advertising can help you get a job, but what you do after a job can often be a significantly strong long-term marketing tool. Follow-up questionnaires are one of the best sources of feedback on how your ad campaign is going.
You can ask your customers things like:
- Why did they choose your business?
- Where did they hear about it?
- Which other companies had they considered?
- What produced the most customer satisfaction?
- What was the least satisfying thing about their interaction with your company?
Surveys help you learn what you did great and where you can improve the customer experience. They are also a great tool to inspire customer loyalty and ask for referrals. There are a number of online service tools like SurveyMonkey, GetFeedback, and PointerPro that are easy and inexpensive to use.
Offer A Free Consultation
When it comes to professional services, people want access to expertise. If you have done a good job of positioning yourself as an expert or authority in your niche, promoting a free consultation is a great way to generate new leads.
A lot of service providers worry about disclosing too much info in a free consultation. They feel like potential clients will just take the info and run. In reality, the exact opposite is true. The type of people interested in paying for quality will be impressed by the value you provide in the consultation.
In Conclusion
Yes, marketing on a limited budget can be a challenge. And, there are many things that you, as a small business owner, can do to attract and maintain a customer base.
If you’d like to learn more about any of the topics we covered in this blog we’re happy to offer you a free one-on-one consultation where we’ll take a look at what you’re presently doing and offer some suggestions about where, and how, you can improve. If you’d like to talk, click here to schedule your no-obligation consultation.
