Every entrepreneur knows the importance of marketing.
They know that having a solid marketing strategy is the key to gaining new customers for your business. Customers are key components to the success of any business. Without customers, who provide the much-needed finances that help your business thrive, your business is doomed to fail. So, the burning question on a small business owner’s mind would be, how can they stay in front of their desired customers and grow their business without going broke?
As mentioned earlier in this article, the key to growing a business is having a solid marketing strategy. Depending on the size of your business, you may not have access to a marketing department. In fact, you may be the marketing department right now.
No matter where you are, this article will show you four free or inexpensive ways to grow your business using organic marketing efforts.
Organic marketing consists of those marketing efforts that will work for you in the long run. This form of marketing is free, but requires some effort.
1. Create a blog for your business. Blogging is one of the most profitable marketing strategies you can introduce to get your business message out to those who need to see it.
A blog can educate your audience about your business, and articles can be tailored to meet the informational needs of your industry.
This is a low-cost strategy, because you’ll want to add your blog as an asset to your business; which means you’ll want to buy a domain and hosting for it.
Some companies build their blogs on sites they don’t own; like Blogger and WordPress.com. While these sites are used by many first-time bloggers, it’s not ideal for someone who wants full control over what they can do with their blog.
Free blogging platforms often come with stipulations. Paying for your domain name and using a site you have control over, like one you would build with WordPress.org, is in your best interest.
2. Start an email list. This is an often overlooked method of marketing a business; although it is profitable. There is a bit of a learning curve involved with setting up and managing email lists, but many of the companies that offer these services have tutorials and teams that are ready to guide you through the entire setup process.
Many of the email marketing platforms have free trials.
Free trials give you the opportunity to test the size of these platforms to see which one fits your needs; as well as the needs of your business.
3. Use social networks. Depending on the type of business you own, you need to choose a social media platform to market your services.
If you’re a hairstylist, Instagram would be a great place to showcase photos of how you made your clients look their best.
A hairstylist might share photos and tips on the latest hairstyle they completed for one of their clients.
If photos aren’t exactly your thing, you might want to use LinkedIn. If your audience is made up of professionals, this platform will allow you to connect with them and share your content in a way that makes you stand out among those who could use your services.
Facebook is also a platform that you can use to promote your business. With the ability to create groups, you could even create communities for those who interact with your company, allowing them to connect with other people who love what your company stands for.
Social media is free to use, but if you have the budget, you can always hire someone to set up and manage your social media account for you.
4. Create an eBook. Business owners probably don’t see themselves as authors; and the thought of writing a long, drawn-out book probably puts a sour taste in their mouths.
But there is one way to ebook that can really help increase your list of potential customers.
Have you ever seen a commercial that asks you to call a number to get your free ebook to find out more about whatever they were talking about in the commercial?
Those books that people call to get are e-books, and they are a form of lead magnet.
A lead magnet is something of value that you give away in exchange for a name, email address, or some other form of contact information.
You can then use the information you collect to build a list of people who are interested in the information you have to offer about a particular product or service.
These eBooks are simple PDF files that are downloaded by the person who provided their information.
Ebooks are cheap to make, because all you need is a word processing program and the ability to save the file you create as a PDF.
To grow your business, it is imperative that you be creative. It may mean taking advantage of tools that you might never have thought to consider otherwise.
While you may never have given much thought to writing an ebook, jumping into the social media waters, or even starting a blog, these are all profitable strategies that don’t cost you much, but can help you grow your business exponentially.