Work with what you have and find creative and inexpensive ways to promote your products and services. It's a challenging feat, considering the limited resources, but think of the countless non-paid strategies you can leverage your business on.
Here are some creative and low cost ways to get you started.
Go hard on social media marketing
There's Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Snapchat! Identify the platforms where your target audience is, sign up for free accounts, and reach your target market online with engaging content. Establish your brand the way you want it.Attract and hold interest by providing reliable and authentic content by sharing relevant blogs and articles, videos, and infographics. Convey your messages, whether promotional or simply informative, in true story-telling fashion accompanied with visually appealing images.
You can even lease staff to handle your digital marketing campaigns, post regular updates, and monitor your social performance.
Even if you don't have the budget for paid ads or boosted posts yet, you can increase brand awareness and grow your fan base organically with content that speaks about your brand.
Set-up and optimize your website
A website can be a great many things to your business. It is where you build your brand, promote and sell your products, and build readership. Read up on web design and development and look for free SEO-tools online to enhance your website's visibility.Be mindful of the user experience on your site. Do the call-to-action buttons stand out? Is the website easy to navigate? Does the content answer your user's queries? If you only get to have one business card, a website is that one card to have in your pocket.
Make sure people get a clear idea of who you are as a brand and remember you even after they log off.
Dabble with guerilla marketing
A utilitarian approach to promoting your brand is guerilla marketing. With this kind of marketing, what you need here is some courage and a network of willing people to help serve your purpose. Social phenomena is the objective of your campaign.What's that one special thing that really stands out about your product? Think of a way on how to best present it to your audience in public. Be different, stand out, and take them by surprise.
Build brand awareness with urban art, reverse-graffiti, and other forms of street propaganda. Organize a flash mob and/or crowd sourcing. Arrange in-store events and other special events and invite your existing customers.
Use the most unconventional methods in promoting your startup. Invest energy and ideas in your guerilla marketing tactics instead of money. You'll be surprised with how high the return of investment can be when you think outside the box.
About the Author:
This article is exclusively written for Pera Ko To: Invest In Your Future Everyday by Booth and Partners, a trusted outsourcing company in the Philippines that offers Business and Customer Support, Lead Generation and Virtual Assistance from small to medium enterprise markets
*Photo Credit: Bill Alldredge (Creative Commons)
