While trying to find the best possible means of reaching out to customers to generate more income, there is also a need to cut costs and find cheap ways to promote business.
For this reason, marketers need to keep on exploring and as well keep up to date with the latest trend that concerns the promotion of business and inexpensive ways to do it.
Marketing your business can prove to be a herculean task, particularly if you have a small scale business.
Also, with several mechanisms and functions put in place, the cost of reaching your customers has skyrocketed.
However, in-between these outrageous prices, there are proven and cheap ways to promote your business. Marketing will not have to cost you an arm and a leg anymore.
There are no particular “steps to follow,” these are simply cheap ways you can adopt to promote your business. You can, therefore choose the ones that work best for you.
Also, with various forms of marketing tools like Zebrabuzz chatbots, you can automate the process of promoting your business easily.
You can get this tool for free now and it can completely take over your business marketing.
Google My Business Account
Get Business Cards
Get a Website
Create Cheap or Free Email Lists
Co-Sponsor an Event or Contest
Host Webinars
Build a Strong or Respectable Social Media Presence
Use Affiliate Programmes
Deliver Quality Content
Google My Business Account
One cost-effective way of promoting your business is simply putting yourself on the map.
While we have said, there is no specific order to the ways in promoting business, having a Google My Business listing is widely regarded as the best way to get started.
Also, not only does it give you several promotional options, you can as well interact with your customers online. What’s more? It is free. You can get started here.
Get Business Cards
Part of the cheap ways to promote your business is to get yourself a business card.
Not only are they useful for your business contact information, but they are also a cheap promotional way of reaching your potential customers.
As your business card will probably reach places you have never been too before you, it is smart to ensure all the necessary details customers need are clearly stated on it.
Asides the person you give it, remember you will not always be with the recipient to explain all you do or give other details. Therefore, ensure it has enough details to promote your business and ensure anyone who sees it and needs your services will reach out to you.
Get a Website
Also, another of the cheap ways to promote your business is getting yourself a website. Don’t be fooled; every business should have a website, especially the 21st-century-business.
The world has become a global village that you need to move from the physical stores and get a website that ensures your customers, both old and new, can check your business out.
Thankfully, there are many ways you can get a website at a cheap price. There are website creating platforms that offer as low as $5-10 a month to maintain your site.
Some platforms allow you to create your site yourself, so you have more control over how your business looks.
Create Cheap or Free Email Lists
Email lists are significant in business. Collect email addresses from the customers that have patronised you so you can send newsletters to them.
These newsletters can be about new offers, new arrivals, promotions and juicy deals, as well as many others.
However, ethics require you ask your users if they would like to subscribe to your newsletters before adding them to the list.
If they accept, that is a cheap way to promote your business; in fact, free.
Co-Sponsor an Event or Contest
You see the businesses that sponsor shows; they are not dumb! There is a purpose. Promotion is about getting your business, its name, services etc. to as many people as possible.
Therefore, one of the many cheap ways to promote your business is co-sponsoring an event. While it would be ideal to be the main sponsor, we are looking for cost-effective ways so co-sponsoring will suffice.
While you are at it, you can also donate some of your products or offer free services during the event.
Host Webinars
Hosting a webinar or class is another way to promote your business cheaply. You could decide to make the class free or offer relatively low prices for it.
Remember, while it is important to impact knowledge on the audience, the primary purpose is to put your business out there. This is not the time to prioritise making money just yet.
Build a Strong or Respectable Social Media Presence
The impact of social media in businesses nowadays cannot be overemphasised. It is literally another market for you, and you must set a strong foothold there.
While there are many social media platforms out there, endeavour to place your business on some of the most popular ones like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube (especially for video content) etc.
Facebook, for one, is one of the best platforms for businesses out there to promote themselves for free or at low costs.
Thankfully, creating a social media page today costs next to nothing, and you can have as many as you want.
However, do link each of them to each other, so your clients know you are available on other platforms. This is important in case some customers use one social media platform more than the other.
Knowing you are available on their favourite platforms will give them reassurances that you are easily accessible.
Use Affiliate Programmes
Affiliate programmes are another smart way to promote your business cheaply. Participants are not getting paid a fixed wage and will only get paid when they make sales.
Therefore, you have people that are not only selling your products for you but are also advertising for free.
When sales are made, you give them the agreed cut.
Deliver Quality Content
Delivering quality content gives you credibility. When customers can trust whatever information you put out, they will most likely recommend you.
This is a cheap way to promote your business, but you must be hardworking. Do not put misleading or wrong information on your website or business page.
In an age where all it takes to bring down a business is a single tweet, you must be careful with the kind of information your business puts out there.
Ensure each content goes through thorough reviews before being put out to be consumed.
Not only should your content be of good quality, but they should also be relevant. Ensure you put out content that your customers will find relevant to them.
If you are not sure what your customers want to see, you can run a poll on your website or social media page.