LAWTON, Okla. – Money is not a problem for enterprise-level firms that have the resources to devote to sales and marketing. Actually, most of them usually have independent marketing departments or spend millions of dollars on third-party marketing firms to launch campaigns.
But that doesn’t always apply to all types of businesses, particularly small businesses. What if you have limited resources to spend on your marketing campaign? Does it mean you sit back and wait until such a time that you will have enough money? Of course not. There are many low budget marketing strategies that you can utilize to grow your business. Here are effective marketing ideas for small businesses working a tight budget.
Target influencers
According to Renzo Costarella, a successful entrepreneur, people purchase what they want from people they trust or deem trustworthy. This is one of the main reasons why influenza marketing is fast becoming a popular marketing strategy. With many digital platforms at their disposal, influencers can market your business to thousands of their followers easily.
Renzo also states that’ High engagement over following or quality over quantity is critical when looking for an influencer. Also, go for somebody specific to your sector and then give them free services or products in exchange for product reviews or promotion. This strategy is popular today with Youtube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook influencers.
Capitalize on Pinterest and Instagram’s popularity
The two digital avenues can help you promote your brand visually. What’s more, they don’t cost a dime! All you have to do is use your phone’s camera and upload. So what type of videos or images should you upload? Here are some ideas:
- Your business’ behind the scenes,
- High-quality images of your products
- Memes
- Geo-targeting and Hashtags
- 2 to 3-minute videos sharing advice
- Testimonials from current customers
- Work on your pitch
Market your business everywhere! This is one of the main strategies behind successful marketing campaigns. Whether it is at a friend’s wedding, a family get together or when travelling your brand should be your priority. And the most compelling way to achieve this through a powerful pitch.
This can be quite a challenge considering that most people rarely pay attention to marketing pitches or if they do their attention span is very short. Technically you have less than 100 seconds to pitch, says, Robert Herjavec a Shark Tank Investor and serial entrepreneur.
If you cannot make an impact within that time, you rather pass, because odds are nobody is really listening to you. Yes, figures and facts are vital, but they are not as important as presenting your pitch in a way the creates confidence and demonstrates expertise.
- Perfect your pitch with these tips:
- Know what motivates the audience
- Include social proof
- Tell a story that demonstrates expertise and how the service or product will solve different problems
- Pre-Orders
Accepting pre-orders is another great yet affordable way to create hype for your service or product launch. Most people rarely use this method because their main focus is usually on the main marketing campaigns. However, what most of them also don’t know is that accepting pre-orders as a fantastic marketing technique in itself.
Another excellent and inexpensive way to build hype for your product launch is by offering pre-order options. This may not have occurred to you because you were highly focused on the marketing campaign for your launch. But what you need to know is that offering a pre-order could be an excellent marketing tactic in itself.
Why is it important? By allowing people to pre-order an upcoming product, you are indirectly making an early sale. However, if you wait until you launch, you are giving your fans a chance to go for something else or to change their minds. Similarly, if the strategy works and many people start pre-ordering, it can create a buzz around the product and drive others to pre-order too.
A good example is when Nintendo allowed pre-orders for their SNES Classic Edition in 2017. The announcement was made in June, and pre-orders were available by July. The pre-orders, however, were sold out even before the official launch of the product. This is a good example of how accepting pre-orders can help propel your product launch.
