The plight of many small business owners is figuring out how they are going to expand their marketing effort without impacting the bottom line too heavily. Larger companies tend to throw money at a problem to see if it fixes it permanently or even temporarily. This simply is not an option for a smaller company as a few failed expensive marketing campaign can spell bankruptcy prematurely for the business. There are plenty of platforms that will allow a smaller company to compete with the larger corporations without money being the deciding factor of who comes out on top. The following are tips to market your small business in a cost efficient manner.
Social Media
The best thing about marketing on social media is that you can do it for free. Setting up tweets for an entire month also takes just an hour or two of writing per month. The most important thing that a smaller company can do on social media is to engage their current and potential customers. Review sites are also a huge deal as people tend to look directly at Yelp or Google Reviews to see if the quality of product or service is up to par. Responding to complaints as well as compliments on these sites as well as social media can be used to market as well as take care of customer service issues.
Outside of the Box Marketing Approaches
The smaller companies sometimes have to use different marketing approaches to compete. The best example of this is a smaller brewing company trying to become a household name. A great strategy would be to have some branded products given away with certain cases of beer. Custom branding ideas could be a wooden coaster that has the brewery name on it as it is reusable and is a good conversation piece. There could be customers that buy the beer just for the coaster but keep coming back because of the quality beer that is produced. Making sure the product is high quality is a huge part of marketing as marketing subpar products spells disaster for a brand.
Content Marketing
Content marketing can be done via the blog on the business’ website as well as on other websites related to the business. This is a great way to become a thought leader in an industry if you create some engaging and interesting content. Content marketing is also a great way to help with your search engine rankings. These can make or break a small business as being on the 3rd or even the 2nd page of a local search leaves them in the dust. Most people do not go past the first few results as they think Google has ranked them by quality when in fact the companies at the top of the search can thank the marketing team instead of those providing the service or product.
Track Every Variable
One huge mistake that small and large companies make is to account for all variables when tracking return on investment for the marketing budget. If these variables aren’t tracked then the exact ROI cannot be found and the marketing strategy for the coming quarters will not be as efficient as possible. This is why changing only a few things at once is the best strategy as you can track what works instead of just guessing.
As you can see it does not always take an enormous budget to see a return on your marketing budget. If you have no idea how you are going to market, bringing in a marketing consultant to put you on the right track can keep you from wasting money on frivolous ideas. Market cost effectively and watch your profits grow!
Author’s Bio
YunasOnline
Yunas is a super-connector with AYC Web Solutions who helps businesses find their audience online through outreach, partnerships, and networking. She frequently writes about the latest advancements in digital marketing and focuses her efforts on developing customized blogger outreach plans depending on the industry and competition.
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