Get Your Small Business Noticed Without Breaking the Bank

November 7, 2007

If you have ambitious plans for the future growth of your small business, but a limited budget, you don’t have to give up on those goals.  Not all marketing requires extensive funding. There are many techniques you can use for getting your small business noticed- and you don’t need a bottomless bank account to get them going, either.

Focus on Keeping Existing Customers

Studies have shown that getting a new customer costs about five times more than the costs associated with keeping your existing customers, so spend some time on activities that encourage your existing customers to stick around.  You can offer some sort of discounts or additional items to your loyal customers; and the more they come back, the more you reward them!

Email Newsletters

If you aren’t using newsletters yet, it’s time to jump on the email newsletter wagon.  It’s true that they aren’t quite as effective as they once were, but for ease of use and the ability to send out relevant information to your opt-in list, you’re wasting a valuable resource if you aren’t using newsletters.  You can either write them yourself, or hire a ghostwriter to put one together for you.  The trick is to do it at least twice each month, send highly valuable information and only send to people who have requested to be on your mailing list.

Word of Mouth

By the far the cheapest form of advertising for ANY size business, word of mouth advertising is one of the most effective ways to generate new customers.  Think about it, when you need a service provider, don’t you usually ask a friend who they use before you hire someone?  You can help increase the amount of word of mouth traffic you get just by offering people incentives for referrals, or getting the buzz going about a contest or promotion you’re running.

Use the Buddy System

You can also effectively reduce your marketing costs by partnering with another business.  For example, if you’re a writer and want to target businesses about writing copy for their brochures or company communications, you could partner with a printing company who would then print your finished documents for the business.  The two of you would share marketing costs and both gain customers from the advertising.

Create a Call-in Campaign with an 800 Number

Get yourself a toll free number (very affordable thanks to prepaid plans like get800today.com offers), and place an ad in your local newspaper.  Everyone who calls your toll free number should get a free report or coupon or something else related to your business (get creative!); and the number of people who respond to the ad will be increased because of your toll free number.

Posted in Starting a Small Business