Tip For A New Small Business …. Free (or Low Cost) Marketing Ideas – stainless steel doors
I don't believe it is impossible to succeed in business without an advertising and marketing budget. How much you need to spend will depend on your business and your industry. If you are a retail shop then a certain amount of advertising will be necessary, perhaps. If you are a service business, you may need to spend some money on marketing.
In the construction industry, for example, you are likely to know people in the industry before you start your own business, and a few telephone calls to a few acquaintances may be all that is necessary to get the ball rolling. After that maintaining contact with as many industry people as possible could get you all you the business you want.
In fact, I would encourage a small business, regardless of the amount of money they have available, to leverage their friends, family and acquaintances. Make a list of everyone you know (or, more importantly, who knows you), call these people and ask for their help - tell them briefly about your business (in no more than 20 seconds) and ask them who they know who could help you get started or expand. Ask your friend to speak to their friend and tell them something about you, then call your friend's friend and ask *them* if they know someone who could help you.
As long as you are asking for help, you are likely to get help. Start selling and trying to get an order and people clam up. That sort of thing makes it a cold call and people don't like cold calls these days. But ask for their help and people are less likely to blow you off. If they can help you, they wll pass you on. If they want what you have to offerf, they will tell you, "Hey! I need some of that. Come and see me!"
I guess you could call it networking - I call it leveraging.
Here's some other simple ideas ..........
* Good Base Materials (business cards, brochures, flyers, website) are the first thing I would invest in.
* Then Public Relations (Press Releases & Other Media Marketing, local Chamber of Commerce, community events/activities)
* Establishing great lead generation (special reports, listbuilding, customer referral programs)
For most small businesses these activities can be done for relatively low cost .... and can create enough of a return to start costlier marketing efforts.
For example ......
1. Business Cards - To get 250 or 500 business cards, even if they are just black and white with your name and address and business details, should cost less then $50. Give them to everyone you meet. If you think that someone you meet may know someone who needs your services .... then give them two and ask that they pass it on to someone else who they think may need your services.
2. Flyers - If this seems like a suitable means of advertising for your business it can be done for very little. Copies can be had for about 6cents a page or less, in black and white. So for 500 A4 flyers this is $30. Or do A5 and get twice as many for half the price. Getting them into mailboxes or hung on stainless steel doors is another thing. But sometimes you need to invest a little time to get some return. Later on it may be smarter to pay someone else to drop them off. But if you are really scrapping for dollars .... doing it yourself is low cost.
3. Public Notice boards - Many shopping center's have public notice boards. Some require that you use provided cards to write your message on. Others allow whatever to be put up. While sometimes they start to look messy, it can be a way to get your name out a little more.
4. Classifieds - Often it can be quite expensive to buy display ad space in newspapers. However placing a classified add can be relatively cheap. Most papers have a section that has business categories, and you can advertise in the most relevant category. It is lower cost, and you may be advertising alongside other people in the same type of business, but I think the response to a lot of classifieds are pot luck mostly anyway.
5. Adwords - While many people do send hundreds or thousands of dollars per day on adwords marketing, It is by far the lowest cost way to get into search results (admittedly to the side and not always at the top) and take advnatage of online markets. But if you have a fairly low competition market, spending $1 per day at 9cents a click is hardly going to kill you. That is just $30 per month, assuming that you use the full $1 bud