When it comes to marketing and promotion, we often feel the time and money required is too great, so we end up putting it off and do nothing. However, neglecting marketing can slow the growth of your business. The following quick and inexpensive ideas help to assuage those concerns:
- Print customised adhesive labels and wrap them around generic chocolate bars or water bottles. Hand them out at public events. (Contact us if you’d like a label designed and printed).
- Review the business pages in your local newspaper for people who have won awards for achievements in their industry. Choose a few and send them a gift certificate for your product or service with a congratulatory note.
- Email your current customers and ask them to write a testimonial for your website.
- Look after your customers. When a new customer purchases a product or service, follow up with a phone call to them within 24 to 48 hours to ask if they’re happy with what they received. This offers many benefits- it shows the customer you appreciate their business and want to ensure they’re happy, and it provides valuable feedback so you can improve your business- and it costs nothing!
- If you’ve already got an advert designed for a magazine, ask for an A4 version and print copies as flyers.
- Start a referral card programme. Have business-sized cards printed with your business name, address and telephone number, and a line that says “Referred by:__________”. Create an incentive for your customers to refer their friends to you by offering a free or discounted service for every referral card you get back with their name.
- Purchase lollies with your logo on the wrapper and give them away on Guy Fawkes or Valentine’s Day.
- Sell Gift Certificates. They’re not only good for sales (typically only 2/3 of certificates are redeemed) but also promote your business. Design certificates featuring products and services rather than for a monetary value so the recipient doesn’t know how much was spent on them.
- Create custom bookmarks with your business details on one side and a literacy campaign on the other. Donate them to a school, library or local literacy organisation.
- If you have a product that isn’t selling well, bundle it with more desirable products and create a price slightly higher than the desirable product, or slightly lower than the cost of the products purchased separately. This will get the product moving, increase income, and will be viewed as a sign of goodwill by your customers.
- Create a custom adhesive label, with “Thank you” at the top and details promoting your company at the bottom. Place them on small sample size boxes of chocolates and give them to teachers, firemen, nurses and other caregivers.
- Create a loyalty programme. You can use the traditional cards that can be stamped for each product or service purchased, and when the card is filled the customer receives a complimentary product or service. This can also be tracked on a system you keep in-house.
- Speak to community groups and civic clubs. Ask your customers which groups they belong to and if they’re looking for speakers. Plan a topic that will appeal to the audience but that focuses on a product or service your business offers that could be helpful to them.
- When members of your staff receive accolades such as being recognized by a local charity for volunteer work, send those announcements to local media. This promotes your company and the values of your employees, as well as building morale by communicating your pride in your employee’s personal accomplishments.
- Display a magnetic sign on your vehicle.
- Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper or relevant industry publication. Mention the name of your business in case it is published.
- Wear hats and t-shirts with your company name and logo on them to sporting events. Give them to your friends and family but ensure they’re stylish enough that they’ll want to wear them! You can increase your chances of getting on tv if you do face paint, banners or crazy hats.
- When customers register for gift draws or fill out forms, make sure there is a birthday field (just the day and month). Keep track of the birthdays that occur each month and send them a card with a discount coupon or voucher for your product or service.
- Find the anniversary announcements in your local newspaper and send a voucher or discount coupon to any couples you can look up in the phone book.
- Keep your college or university alumni association updated about your business regularly.
- Participate in a fundraiser walk or run with your employees, raising money for a charity. Name your team after your business for exposure in the race programmes and wear hats or t-shirts featuring your logo.
For stores
- Promote a day via flyers, tv or radio where customers can come find (and keep) five dollar bills you’ve hidden around the store (hide around 20).
- Hold a contest “How many lollies are in this jar?” for kids. The winner gets the jar full of lollies. You can promote it to math teachers in local schools as a lesson in estimation.
When considering avenues for promoting your business, it is useful to take into account how many people the method will reach, utlise the relationships and networks you currently have, and consider purchasing promotional products featuring your brand from companies who do not have a minimum purchase requirement.
Sources:
“Promote your business for $50 or less”, by Wendy Burt Thomas, HER magazine, Sept. 2008.
http://www.salonmarketing.biz/10%20Marketing%20Ideas%20under%20$50.pdf