There is a certain charm in small businesses. The excitement of a start-up and the suspense of the unknown make the experience worthwhile. But it also comes with the perennial problem of budget constraint. Start-ups are often low on resources as well as manpower which make it difficult to fund conventional promotional measures such as large billboards, front page adverts in newspapers or primetime TV commercials.
But the good news is that the internet has made it remarkably easier to promote the businesses online and with a clear strategy and good understanding of the medium, a small business can draw as many eyeballs as a big conglomerate on the web.
Build a strong web presence
Building online presence is not only about having a website. You need an entire ecosystem of various online properties to support your site. You need to have strong social media presence across different networks. You can have secondary sites such as free blogs in Blogger and WordPress that link back to your main site. Nowadays you also need to be present in mobile only channels like Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp etc.
You must also create quality content not only for your site but also to submit in other sites such as article directories and Press Release Sites and you need to invest time and money for SEO too. Also, you need to be aware of modern design trends. The site needs to look sleek and cutting edge.
Use Open Source Technologies
Now, if the above sound too intimidating, relax! The good thing about internet is that there are many free and open source technologies that provides miraculous results at little or no cost. For example, web hosting generally costs money but you can find free web hosts to begin with. Similarly, using social networks is free. You do need to pay for adverts, but if you can create intelligent posts that can go viral, you will achieve high publicity without spending anything.
Web design is also comparatively easier nowadays with open source frameworks such as WordPress, Drupal, OpenCart and many others. You just need to download and install what you need.
Build relationships not traffic
Generally online marketers obsess over traffic. But do keep in mind that you do not succeed just by making thousands of people visit your site. Eventually they need to become your clients. You need to build a long term relationship with them. Official Facebook pages and Twitter profiles are a good way to keep in touch with the visitors. Also, you should always encourage them to provide their email IDs. In fact you should also collect mail IDs offline if possible and build up a database of prospective customers. Later on, you can send mailers informing about your new launches, updates and offers.
But again, do remember that email campaigns have to be really clever with their copy to capture attention.
Add that local and personal touch
This is the era of localization. In this highly competitive market you can stand out with a personal and local touch. It is especially true for small businesses. For instance, a small business in Texas can win more fans by clearly coming across as a native brand who understands what the locals want. QR codes are an interactive way of conveying a message to the audience, for instance. This will make it preferable over international brands from big cities that generally never have such connections with people and comes across as distant and cold money making machines.
Also, consider using location based services like Foursquare, Yelp, Gogobot etc. through smartphones to capture highly targeted audience.
Research, Understand and Test
Learning never ends for an entrepreneur. You always need to keep yourself up to date with changing technologies. You need to know how Google is changing its algorithm or which new social network is becoming popular. You should also test your online assets regularly. For instance, try different copies for the same mailer and see which gets more response. Also, keep a close eye on the analytics data for your website to understand current web trends. See which sources are giving you better returns, adjust and improvise.
Final Thoughts
These tips will help you increase awareness about your business while not throwing your marketing budgets in disarray. Also, while we are on the subject of budgets, you should also make an effort to research about various banking services and learn how to make the most out of your bank. None of the aforementioned activities are rocket science. But it may be difficult manage time for all of them while you also focus on your main business.
So, you may need to hire professionals for specific activities such as web design and SEO etc. But no matter what you do, always look for free, open sources options first to keep your expenses down.
