Starting a business can feel like a thankless task. No matter how passionate you feel about what you’re doing, the energy necessary for growing an idea from the ground up can start to wane over time. To prompt sales and eventually see growth, it’s important to promote yourself effectively. While marketing can feel like the least of your worries when you’re dealing with day-to-day business operations, it’s a critical part of a successful organization. Read on for three ways to market your business on a shoestring budget and reap the rewards.
Share Your Expertise
It can feel counterintuitive to give your business secrets away, but sometimes it’s the best way to get noticed and establish yourself as an industry leader worth listening to. Chances are, if you’re a business owner, you have a talent for something specific – there is some aspect of your business that you truly excel at. Capitalize on your strengths and help teach others. Share your secrets to build loyalty among peers and colleagues. Transparency is, unfortunately, all too rare in this day and age. By letting the public catch a glimpse of some “behind the scenes” strategies, you can become more relatable to them and stand out among competitors.
Quality over Quantity
Create an articulate, easy to understand “how to” guide explaining one aspect of your industry in explicit detail. This document should be beneficial for you before it can be beneficial for others. When it comes to scaling up your business model down the line – you can refer to your guide to help replicate the successes of the foundations of the business. If you write a high quality piece that explains how you do what you do, then it will be beneficial for others in your field. Basically, if your strategy was successful, it’s likely that others will want to take advantage of the advice you’re giving away and apply it to their own business model. Focus on creating this one quality piece and submit it as a guest post to any relevant industry blogs (which you can find through Blogger LinkUp – a free resource). Publishing even a single article will help you start establishing yourself as a thought leader and organically promote your business.
Social Media
You don’t need to pay for expensive ads to effectively target your key audience and boost sales. Social media is a critical factor in determining consumer behavior. Study your Facebook, twitter, and LinkedIn analytics to figure out who you should be marketing to and how you can market to them efficiently, at a low cost. Promote status updates, offer free giveaways, and always be willing to help out a friend. Retweet other companies’ messages and “like” various business pages on Facebook. If you go out on a limb for other businesses, you can forge a partnership or even just build a virtual group of supporters. Both are valuable for marketing a business.
Marketing a company is not necessarily easy, but it doesn’t have to be expensive. If you’re looking to grow your business, but struggle with the allocation of finances, talk to industry professionals – like those at Online Trading Academy – to learn about start up investment funding and angel investing. You can make a good deal of progress promoting a business as a single individuals but sometimes it helps to brainstorm with a team of experts.
