If you want your business to be a success, you will need to pledge both money and time to help it grow and stand out against the competition.
However, we know that not all businesses have an enormous marketing budget to keep dipping into, so we are going to share some unique marketing strategies that you can implement without breaking the bank. Even with a modest marketing budget, there are some creative tactics to help your money stretch further, as well as creating marketing strategies that will cost you next to nothing. With these top tips, you don’t need to have a huge marketing spend to compete with those in your industry.
1.  Promotional products
Promotional products and freebies are great for getting your business name and brand out there. Look at creating branded products that suit your business, are environmentally friendly and are reusable, as these are popular from both an ethical point of view and will also increase your brand exposure. Popular items that fit this purpose are personalised water bottles as customers will regularly re-use them in places like the office and the gym.
There’s a vast variety of products that you can customise with your brand at Igo Promo, helping you to create brand exposure for a fraction of the price of most digital advertising campaigns.
2. Customer reviews and case studies
Customer reviews are one of the best ways of building trust with potential customers, and they’re a completely free marketing strategy to take advantage of. Promote your best customer reviews on your website and social media channels for everyone to see, and don’t be afraid to post the content regularly to build trust.
Case studies are another fantastic way of showing potential customers how your product or service can benefit them. Good case studies will set out a customer problem and then show how you provided a solution, as well as the benefits gained from purchasing or working with you. You just need to find clients or customers who you’ve worked with who would be happy to recommend you and to provide some quotes that reflect their experience with you.
3. Email campaigns
Encourage your customers and social media followers to sign up to email newsletters and use this as an opportunity to both inform and sell your products or services. To improve your email sign-up rates, offer people an incentive such as providing discounts or exclusive offers only available via email.
Above everything, exceptional marketing emails must contain a powerful Call to Action (CTA). What do you want the reader to do? Offering a discount or giving them exclusive access to a sale is more likely to make them perform an action, which will lead to sales and conversions.
4. Networking
Networking is a highly effective way of promoting your business for free. Socialising with like-minded business leaders will open up more doors for your company, and could present exciting opportunities and collaborations. Before you start networking, make sure that you have perfected your business pitch, to make an excellent first impression.
And don’t forget about online networking opportunities. LinkedIn is probably the best platform for business networking, but you can also find specific online industry forums, as well as using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Google+.
5. Social media competitions
Running social media competitions is a brilliant way to attract and engage with consumers and grow awareness of your product or service. Running competitions where entrants have to share or ‘Retweet’ the competition details will get your brand in front of more people and can increase purchase intent from potential customers.
The other benefits of running competitions are that you can use them to reward your customers, build an email list and drive traffic to your website. So, for the cost of one of your products or services, you can gain critical customer data and so much more.
6. Create shareable content
Creating interesting and informative blog posts, infographics, e-books, or other shareable content is an excellent technique for budget marketing, as you just need to put some time aside to create some genuinely share-worthy content. Use your industry knowledge to create content that answers commonly-asked questions or sheds light on a certain topic. Make sure wherever you share your content, you include your business and contact details. If consumers view your content as informative, then they will trust you and are much more likely to purchase from you in the future.
There are plenty of ways that you can grow your business with budget marketing strategies in 2021. There’s no need to be intimidated by the big players in your industry, because you have the tools at your disposal to compete with them when you utilise the tips outlined above. Make 2021 your year by sticking to the basics and watch your business grow.
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