Small Business Marketing Tips for a Small Budget

When small businesses talk about marketing, they may often seem frustrated. This is mostly due to budgets and affordability. Working with a big marketing budget is hard to come by for small businesses, especially for start ups. However, while the big time marketing campaigns may be out of reach for some small businesses, the good news is that there are marketing strategies that can fit into any small business marketing budget.

The first step today is turning to online or digital marketing. It has been proven that digital and inbound marketing techniques are an easy, effective, and affordable way to reach out to a wider market. A big mistake that small business owners and entrepreneurs often make is they assume that creating a website is all they have to do. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Creating a website is step one. Then you have to market it. Do you think your website will be effective if you rely on customers to find it themselves? Start with low-cost advertising methods and build a good relationship with your customers.

Reach Out to Customers

Small businesses need to reach out to customers, not the other way around. Small businesses need to invest the time and effort in the beginning to reach out to customers. Luckily the convenience and flexibility of social media and inbound marketing has made reaching out to customers much easier than in the past. Social media marketing is something all small businesses need to incorporate in order to implement an effective marketing campaign. This is one of the most effective and affordable small business marketing strategies.

Customer Relationships and Retention

So you’ve spent a ton of time and effort on marketing your small business through social media and other mediums, generating leads, and landing new customers, now you need to keep them. Maintaining customer relationships and ensuring customer retention is the next crucial step for small business marketing, and for ensuring small business success. Customer retention is all about working with them even after the initial sale. You should keep them updated on your products and services, and offer them an open line of communication for them to contact you and receive top notch customer service. One way to do this is to offer a toll free number. This will make your customers feel valued and will certainly recommend you to family and friends.

Offer and Maintain Consistency with your Products and Services and Brand

When operating a small business as a relatively new entrepreneur, you may have a ton of ideas that you want to run with. This may mean altering your brand or offering or changing your products and services. While all entrepreneurs are encouraged to ‘think big’, don’t bite off more than you can chew. Maintaining a level of consistency with your products and services is very important. Sure, you can always offer more, and you should look to developing your business down the line, but keep your customers updated on your advances and progress. Also a level of consistency will also help and increase brand recognition. Customers want a brand they instantly recognize and respond to. A well-developed brand should instantly remind customers who you are and what you are about. You should not forget your main purpose and you should do it on a regular basis. Remember, it is not a bad thing to promote your products and services, but keep timing in mind.

One can clearly see that these marketing strategies are just what they are: strategies. They are simple business tactics that are very effective and cost small businesses and entrepreneurs little to nothing. They are more related to approach with a focus on development rather than writing a big check to a marketing firm that promises huge results and a SEO boost that will indubitably increase sales. For small businesses, it’s important to start small, but these strategies have proven to produce huge results…without the huge cost.