Budget allocation is one of the foremost challenges that most businesses, be it start-ups or seasoned businesses, face and marketing is the first thing that is struck off when there is any kind of budget constraint.
This is because most entrepreneurs think that marketing and advertising call for a huge investment. But that is not true as there are several cost-effective ways that you can embrace to create the buzz around your business.
Without further ado, here are some inexpensive ways to achieve your marketing goals without breaking the bank or on a shoe-string budget.
-
Try
Guerrilla Techniques
– Instead of a big budget, the guerrilla marketing technique
actually involves imagination, creativity and ingenuity. The small
businesses on a restricted budget can often use this technique. Here
are some examples –
- You should employ people to promote the product to prospective customers as undercover agents if your product can be used on the street. For example, agents were hired by Sony to ask random people to click them and then they praised their camera for the same.
- If yours is a brick-and-mortar shop you can pay someone to create a wall-graffiti or some remarkable art with chalk.
- You can organise a flash mob for garnering attention of the crowd and endorse your brand or make the people aware about it.
- Use Digital Marketing – The digital marketing can be your ideal choice for providing your business the access and visibility that it deserves. Even though paid ads can be beyond the rich, you can benefit from the organic ways by doing SEO to grow the presence of your product and service in the digital world.
- Socialise on the Social Media – Majority of the people have social media accounts and access it on the daily basis. This implies more than 5 times the consumers when compared with the last decade. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest are some of the most popular social media platforms. What distinguishes them from one another is the uniqueness of interactions. So you can choose what suits you the most instead of going for all of them.
- Network and Collaborate – To build a business in an affordable way there is nothing as good as networking. You can meet up some people in the industry, create contact and build the social network for your business to leverage it overtime. This is one method that never fails. So try this when you have budget-constraint. You can also collaborate with businesses and cross-promote. This will enhance the visibility of your products and services. With collaboration you can augment your market base and reap the rewards in future.
- Create the Instructional Videos – The video content is really valuable and while it can cost a bit heavily to get professional videos produced on You Tube, you can always try it yourself by hiring a film student.
- Ask for Referrals and Build Businesses – When budget is an issue asking for referral is a great way to market your business. So never hesitate to ask for customer referrals as generally people are willing to help when asked for. With the polite requests either through digital media or personally, you get lots of referrals and it is a sure-shot way to bring in more customers. You should also focus on building relationships with people who matter to your business. Once you find ways to keep in touch, it will help boosting your relationship overtime.
The above are some inexpensive ways to market your business. Apart from the above you can also arrange small and affordable events either organised by you or by event marketing professionals to increase your customer base and enhance your brand awareness. All these will help your business to stand out and create its own niche in the industry in the long run.
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