If you are just starting out on your business adventure, being a new start up or a small business you’ll admit there’s no money to be wasted on random, unnecessary things such as expensive advertising. Surely, once you starting playing with the big ones expensive advertising will be the least of your troubles, but for now – making sure you stay on the budget is one of the things you need to be most mindful of. Don’t think your tiny budget prevents you from getting somewhere in the business, though.
Sometimes, limitations make us think outside the box and we come up with better ideas and results than we would have had there weren’t for limitations imposed.
The first you should do is brainstorm with your partners and colleagues of ways you could use your intelligence for marketing. Here are some ideas that will help you:
Instead of blogging, publish an article /or articles/ in a local magazine.
Even though blogging is great, sometimes having your success story published in a local magazine will get to more readers than a blog would. Also, publishing articles costs less than an advertisement, right? If you have the time, you can both magazine and blog.
Sponsor a local event
This can be an event happening each year in your town or a, say, sports event. Have your firm’s logo on staff’s uniforms. If you are going for the latter, do the same thing, only with team uniforms.
Use, rely on and reuse your content
There is no doubt the content you are working with is great, but if nobody is using it you don’t benefit from it. So, reuse all content you find interesting and helpful and reusing for blogging or similar.
Apply for a lecture
One way of building reputation for yourself and your firm is hosting a lecture for Universities/colleagues/schools that are in your line of business. If you apply to host a lecture in a local University you will be interacting with a lot of young people that have the privilege to hear of you and learn from you. Teach them valuable things they may not have the opportunity to learn otherwise. You may be their inspiration to follow in your foot steps while at the same time you are THAT firm that hosted the lecture.
Connect
You may find it a bit unusual to go around and chase people to work with, but there is really no shame in it. You are not selling them poison, only your services.
If people you interact with almost daily are not a part of your business yet, make them a part of it as soon as possible. People you should be contacting are your: attorney, electrician, plumber, accountant, housekeeper, mechanic, babysitter, housekeeper, dentist, nail technician, hairdresser, coach, personal trainer, etc. Family and friends are already there, I hope. If they are not fit to do business with you, they surely know someone who is. Word of mouth marketing and interesting promotional items are the best marketing out there – spread the word and have it spread by those you trust the most!
Also, ask these people to display your business cards and flyers at their offices.
Be a people persona and hang out where “your people” hang out
We assume you know who your target audience is. Well, since you do, hang where you know you’ll have the chance of meeting them and talking to them.
Be a cool, spontaneous person that knows just the right thing they need. Don’t be pushy, though. No is a no. Still, if you hit the wall of a strong ‘No’, end the conversation lightly, saying things like ‘Oh well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me’ and ‘such shame, we could’ve done some amazing things together. Think about it’.
Also, speaking of being a people person – don’t be afraid of the internet, face-to-face meetings, phones and emails.
