✮  7 Low or No-Cost Ways to Market Your Small Business

As a business owner you know you need to be marketing your small business to get more sales, customers or clients, but the cupboard seems to be bare when it comes to a marketing budget. The adage that you have to spend money to make money is absolutely true — but there are some less expensive ways you can utilize to market your business — with success!

First, you don’t have to start out by spending thousands of dollars right away. Start your marketing efforts inexpensively by using free or low-cost marketing methods that will get your website and business some attention from prospective clients.

Here are 7 ways you can market your company for no or low-costs. Now you have no excuse not to begin marketing your business and website today!

7 Low or No-Cost Ways to Market your Small Business

Your blog – First, if you don’t have a blog, you absolutely NEED a blog on your website. For years businesses have thought of blogs a “nice-to-haves” but not a necessity. This is no longer true. Google and the other search engines expect to see fresh, valuable content regularly posted on your website. They’re looking for it. If they “spider” or “index” your site and don’t find any new content, they may begin to think that you’re non-existent or not engaged and they won’t rank your site as high in the search engine results.

Blogging is one of the easiest ways to add content to your site (also known as content marketing). Start by making your blog a go-to destination for your potential customers or clients by providing valuable content that can help them. Don’t be self promotional. Blogging doesn’t cost much — except your time and perhaps purchasing some high-quality images to make your blog post stand out. (I recommend using iStockPhoto.com to order and download some great images to use.) BTW, studies have shown that having images on your blog can help increase engagement and will grab your reader’s attention.

If you’re stuck for ideas for a blog post, use a keyword research tool like Google AdWords Ad Planner and find keyword phrases that your potential customers are searching for and write your blog posts about those topics.

Get listed on important online local business directories – You may be surprised to find out that your business is probably already listed on dozens of popular online business directories. These directories scour the Internet looking for businesses, copy your business information and add it to their directory. The problem: the information the various directories have may be incorrect! The rule is you want to make sure that your business’ name, address and phone number (NAP) are EXACTLY the same on all the directories. (Example: Is your street address listed as Road, Rd. or Rd? It matters. Pick one and stick with it on ALL the directories and include your correct address in the footer of every page of your website.)

First, make sure you have your local business listed with Google My Business and Bing Places for Business as well as all the important local merchant directories, like Yelp, Merchant Circle and a several others. Many clients tell me, “But nobody searches on Yelp to find businesses — I search on Google.” That’s true — but guess what? The search engines pull in data from these directories into the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) when someone does a search:

Your Business Must Be Listed on Credible Online Business Directories

Our sister company, early bird digital marketing, can run a FREE online business directory report for your business. This will allow you to see which online local business directories your website and business appears on — and it will also show any problems with those listings. If you run a report and find problems, don’t freak out. We can help!

Optimize and engage with social media channels – Using social media is no longer an option for a business — it’s a requirement. This is where people are spending a lot of their time and not only that, it’s where they look for social proof. Social media platforms like Facebook have now become a local company’s best friend. Just check out one of my friend’s posts on Facebook. (Chances are you’ve seen these types of posts in your Facebook page, too):

Social Media, Like Facebook, is Used to Help with Buying Decisions

Don’t get stressed and think you have to be on every social media channel. Not every channel is right for every business. Make sure you are active on at least Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

Get killer business cards printed – A low-cost method that still rocks is having a memorable business card that really catches a potential customer’s attention. Even thought we’re in a digital world, you will need business cards nearly every day you’re in business. Make sure you always have some on you and pass them out to anyone and everyone that expresses interested in what you have to offer — especially at events like conferences, trade shows and other business meetings. iPrint offers some amazingly catchy square business cards that stop people in their tracks. To make an even bigger impact, have the backside printed with a professional head shot of you with your title and specialties — which will make you really stand out.

iPrint has square business cards for businesses. Really grabs people’s attention.

Start email marketing to your current customers and start getting a subscriber list – Just as important is that you are building an email list. There are several free ways to get your newsletter and email subscriber list started, by using a service like Mailchimp. You can use a free account until you have enough subscribers to warrant a paid-for email marketing account.

Run low-cost advertising campaigns – These days it is definitely possible to create and run a low-cost paid ad campaign on popular sites like Facebook, Twitter and many of the mobile ad networks. Also look into targeted display ads and retargeting platforms. Don’t overlook this — it can be very useful for building lists and audiences you can market to for a long time. A little work upfront can lead to long-term benefits.

Create visual content – People LOVE video and images. Use visual content every chance you get, taking full advantage of the traffic generated by visual content monsters like YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram. It’s not hard to do and can be very inexpensive. You can create a visual in Word and use a tool like Snagit to “capture” the image, save it as a .jpg and use it on your website, social media posts, blog posts, newsletters, etc. You can also use an inexpensive — yet a really, really cool tool — like Canva.

Marketing Your Small Business on a Shoestring Budget is Possible — Go For It!

Marketing your small business can be done with very little cash and the benefits you’ll gain can be surprisingly robust. Don’t let the size of your marketing budget determine how successful your business is going to be. Start with some of these methods today!

Could your business be generating more customers online? Contact us today for your free Search Engine Optimization (SEO) assessment! Just fill out the form and we’ll follow up with you to get the information we need. Click Here to Get Your FREE Report »