You want your small business to thrive, but the methods that larger companies use to successfully promote themselves and attract new business, like banner ads, billboards and event sponsorships, are a bit out of your reach. So what’s a small business to do? The answer is, plenty! There are countless tactics for effectively and inexpensively promoting your small business available to you, and here are the first 10 moves that you should make right now.
1. Come up with a graphic or logo for business cards and stationary. If you want to be perceived as a professional who takes his or her business seriously then you should have branded business cards and stationary with letterhead. Your logo doesn’t have to be intricate. Something very simple can easily become the recognizable face of the brand by which you will identify yourself, and you should try to get that and your business cards into the hands of as many people as possible.
2. Set up a website for your business. If you can’t afford to hire a qualified professional to design a custom website for you, there are companies like HomeStead.com or SiteSell.com, who can provide you with templates and tools that will make it simple to design it yourself. You’ll want your website to be attractive but functionality is key. Don’t forget that your logo should have a prominent place on your website’s homepage.
3. Get your website mobile accessible. This may not be your number one priority when initially building your site, but it needs to be done. Smartphones and tablets are among the most popular devices used to search the internet, which means many of your future customers might find you that way. You should make sure your website is responsive, meaning it will automatically scale itself to fit any size screen. You might also consider using a free mobile website builder to create a mobile version of your site and automatically redirect mobile traffic.
4. Consider setting up a blog. A blog is an excellent marketing tool for your website, and of course your business. Businesses who have blogs that they contribute to a on a regular basis are twice as likely to generate leads from their website as those who don’t. You will need to post quality content to your blog at least weekly, but as often as possible is ideal. Most bloggers find that creating an editorial calendar and scheduling blog posts and topic ideas help them commit to the task.
5. Get active on social media. Now that you have a website and an active blog, you’ll want to get as much exposure for them as possible. Set up business profiles on network sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter. Simply creating these accounts for your business won’t cut it though. You will need to regularly communicate new and interesting information to your audience, engage with other users and keep your profiles up to date.
6. Take advantage of the content marketing opportunity at your fingertips. Once you have a fully functional website, a blog that you regularly contribute to and active social media platforms you can begin making them work together to achieve considerable marketing results for your business. Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to attract new customers and drive new business. Share useful, relevant and compelling information across all of your channels and it will get noticed.
7. Set up a listing for your business in search engine directories. You can be listed on both Google and Bing for free and on Yahoo for a small monthly fee, which will put you in up to 50 directories including Yahoo Local, Bing, Yelp, WhitePages, Mapquest and much more.
8. Get your business listed on location based directories. Swarm, Foursquare and Yelp are extremely popular and can help you get discovered and attract more business from local consumers.
9. Sign up for an email service and create an email newsletter. This will allow you to send promotional offers to customers and keep in touch with your audience on a slightly more personalized level than you do on social media. You will want to get permission to add people to your email distribution list, so this is a great opportunity to develop a newsletter sign up promotion. Offering your customers and prospects a free gift or special promotion in exchange for their information will help you quickly grow your email distribution list.
10. Attend local meetings of professional groups, and don’t forget to bring your business cards. Small business expos, chamber of commerce meetups and civic association gatherings are fortuitous networking events. They are rife with opportunities for meeting new prospects or cross promoting with other businesses. It also never hurts to develop friendly relationships with other business owners in your area.
Start with these 10 strategies for effective promotions on a small business budget and you’ll see before long that major results are not so far out of reach.