If you are just starting out or finding yourself short of funds, you may need to find ways to market your business on a shoestring budget. Just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean it’s not effective.
Use the Good Old business card
You can get cheap business cards printed online. When you go to any event, be sure to leave your business card. Whenever you have a reason to give someone your phone number, give them your business card. You never know when someone will need the services you offer, or when your friends and family will meet someone who needs your services.
Build a website with a blog
It is very important to take care of your budget, but do not be stingy. Using self-hosted WordPress makes having a professional looking website with a blog really easy. If you’re technologically deficient and can’t afford to hire someone, consider using a website builder that offers a blog feature. The next step is to write keyword-rich, informative blog posts that you promote through social media.
Use social media to promote your business
Set up branded social media accounts for your business. But, you don’t have to be on all social networks. Instead, use the knowledge you have about your audience to choose which social networks to be present on. Make good profiles that represent your brand in a cohesive way.
Find a joint venture partner for a project
A JV partnership is not an actual business partnership. It is a joining of forces or collaboration between complementary business owners who share an audience but are not in direct competition. Finding a project to work on like this can essentially help them double their audience.
write an ebook
If you are an expert on something, you can write an eBook on the subject. You can easily publish it to Kindle or promote it as a PDF right from your website. You can sell it or give it away for free. Up to you. But, a book can propel you in the eyes of your audience as a true expert and become a business card.
Enter the speech circuit
Using your book as a base, spread the word that you’re ready to speak locally, and for the cost of a ticket, room and board, attend other speaking events. Sometimes he can even get paid to speak once he’s established and in demand. Therefore, speaking can not only become a good marketing opportunity, but it can also become a new source of income.
incentivize referrals
A really great way to increase your customer base is to convince your customers to recommend you to others. Most of the time, satisfied customers will tell others about you, but in some cases they may not because they want to stay with you. This is especially true with service-based businesses. So a great way to overcome this problem is to give your customers a reason to tell others about you, like a discount coupon or extra freebies for every paying customer they send you.
If you sell products, consider starting an affiliate program as a way to get more people talking about your products and make more sales without costing you anything more than a percentage of sales.
