So you want some tips on how to market your business on a budget. Here’s some of our best tips that we’d like to share with you.
1. Have a website and keep your content fresh
Learn how to either build the website yourself and/or learn how to upload content like blogs yourself. The best balance here is to hire the professionals to build the website. If you’re in business in Ireland, contact your Local Enterprise Office as they offer Online Trading Vouchers. Basically, you pay for the website in full and they will reimburse 50% back to your business. There are some terms and conditions that apply, but that is it in a nutshell. It’s worth keeping in mind that these great Online Trading Vouchers can be used against marketing strategy and digital marketing services also – Lush Marketing can provide help with this.
Keep the content on your website updated regularly. Get your web developer to show you how to load new content, particularly to your blog section.
2. Networking
There are so many networking events to choose from for businesses, particularly in Ireland. If you’re a woman in business, then there’s even more choice again! Some networking events are free or subsidised heavily, especially the ones organised by your Local Enterprise Office.
It might be worth investing some of your marketing budget each year in networking, especially if your business is B2B. There’s a host of free events and some have a fee attached per event or per annum. Your local Chamber might be worth joining or your local branch of Network Ireland. There’s lots of choice, so just try a few and see what fits best with your business and values.
3. Email Marketing
So you can spend a little or a lot on this, depending on your business, the number in your database and the type of business you run. Be sure to be GDPR compliant – i.e. make sure that you have collected the customer’s permission recently to contact them for the purposes of marketing. Don’t just send one email newsletter per year. If your customers have given their permission then keep in touch with them on a regular basis. Obviously don’t harass them either!! Make a plan to keep in touch via email on an agreed timeframe regularly – weekly, monthly, fortnightly or quarterly. Providers such as MailChimp might be free to use if your database of customers is below their chargeable threshold.
4. Ask for Referrals or Reward Referrals
The best business is repeat and referred business. If somebody referred your business then it means that they were a happy customer. Be sure to ask your customers to keep you in mind when chatting to their friends, family and colleagues.
You might be in a business where you can reward customers for a referral, such as a discount or a freebie. Keep in mind the “feel good” factor for both your existing and new customer.
5. Be active on Social Media
If you have social media accounts for your business, then use them! Concentrate on one or two of the main platforms and publish content regularly. You’ll be able to see from the analytics what posts are performing best. It might then be worth putting some paid advertising behind these posts or type of posts. Depending on your business, social media advertising doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Know your target audience and target this type of customer on social media when advertising. For example, if you run a hairdresser and want to promote your business to women in their 30s and 40s, then just target women in their 30s and 40s in your advertising. Remember that everyone isn’t your customer. Choose who is your ideal customer and target them. Social media advertising can be great. It allows you to target your customer not only by gender, age and geography, but by interests and income among other things.
As ever, feel free to get in touch with us. We offer help to businesses with their marketing strategy, training and outsourcing.
A big thank you to https://blog.spendesk.com/en/startup-marketing-budget
They gave us a shout out and link to this article as they found our content useful and engaging. Thank you!
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