How to market your small business ...the affordable way

It’s time to look at your small business marketing and you don’t know where to start. All you know is that you don’t want to waste your money and you need to get a positive ROI. Many SMB businesses are owner-operated so you have a deep interest in doing something that works.

Email Marketing

Collect emails and permission to send newsletters. Don’t be spammy and your audience will grow. When you send emails, keep to the point and introduce exactly what you have to offer. Either your audience will grow or you will fine-tune your offering to better match what your customers want.

Email newsletters are easy to create, very affordable, and in most cases, much more manageable than letter mail.

Use Social Media

You can pay money to advertise on social media, and this can get your business in front of plenty of potential customers. But, this may is costly and it’s not the only option. You can participate in social media for free.  All you need is a little time.

Here’s how you do it. Setup a business account or business page and start talking to people you know about what you do. Current customers and close friends are invaluable resources as they can become your advocates. Many social media sites let customers leave reviews on business pages and you’ll want to get lots of those. Ask everyone you can to leave an honest review. The positive reviews will reinforce your brand and the not-so-positive ones will teach you how to be better. This is a win-win and it doesn’t cost any money.

Basic Website (Micro site)

You can get a website on squarespace or wix which will get your company online. If you watch what you are doing, you can do this pretty effectively for a couple hundred bucks. The only thing it will cost you (really) is time. Lots of time.  However, if you have it, spend some time putting together a website. It won’t hurt.

Every business that has a website online can benefit from search visibility and this requires a little expertise.  You can improve your website's chances of showing up in search results.

Vehicle Decals and Car Wraps

Your vehicle is a moving billboard and if you wrap it with an ad, it will get seen. Checkout your local car wrap company and get your car or truck wrapped for around $3,000. You’ve seen these around and you probably notice which companies are using them which is an indication of how well they work for small business marketing.

Keep The Customers You Already Have!

It takes work to get new customers. It's much easier to keep the ones you already have. Most of the time, if you’ve done good work for them in the past or if they appreciate the products you sold them, then they won’t mind if you offer them something new. This is hugely important for SMB businesses because of the inter-personal relationships you have with your customers. (Hint: this is something the larger firms can’t match).