Whether you’re a start up business or have been in business for years, times have been hard recently and often marketing budgets are the first things to see cuts. I’m personally against cutting your marketing budget in a time where you NEED more business, but I guess I’m bias. There are some really cool ways to kick start your marketing, or give your existing strategy a boost that don’t cost a fortune. Mostly just your time! That’s why this week on the blog we’re taking a look at how to promote your business on the cheap.

1. Facebook Ads

When you find out the value for money you get with FB ads, you’ll wonder why you ever spent money on anything else. Facebook’s advertising platform is a bit of a revelation in this industry. You choose the budget, the demographic, the age group, likes/interests etc. You can be highly targeted and you can set your own budget. The analytics allow you to monitor and review what’s worked and what hasn’t, so you get the most out of your money. What’s not to like!?

2. Google Adwords – Free £75

Google Adwords are a great way of getting people to visit your website who you know are searching for a product or service related to yours. If you’re setting up a new account you can get £75 for free, if you spend £25. So essentially you’re getting £100’s worth of great targeted pay-per-click advertising for £25! Bargain. Google have a great support team that can help with your ads, or alternatively we can help you!

3. Email Marketing

I’ve mentioned on a couple of recent blogs that email marketing should be an important part of your marketing strategy. Social media sites have been and gone, whilst email has always been a solid and steady way of communicating over the last 20 years. Email marketing services such as Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor allow you to build your own email marketing templates which look awesome, and are super simple to use. If you’re sending out to a list of under 2,500 Mailchimp is free of charge, whereas Campaign Monitor comes with a very low service charge but certainly has its own positives. Again, it’s mostly just your time and thought that you have to put into it.

4. Efficient social media management

Even though fresh content is always best, it’s not always that easy to be in front of your computer or mobile device at ALL times. There are some great social media management tools that are free of charge or, similar to email marketing, come with a very low service charge. Take Hootsuite for example, you can manage all your social media accounts in one place and schedule in your posts for the day/week. They charge nothing for under 5 accounts. Sound too good to be true? Try it out for yourself! The tools to market your business online are simply becoming so much cheaper and better than your average 12 month bus advert campaign.

5. Ask existing clients for endorsements

Even though there’s LOADS of cool ways to reach out to new business, there’s nothing more powerful than a word-of-mouth endorsement of your product or service to another person. You can encourage this by getting in contact with your current customer base, and offering them incentives for becoming endorsers. Obviously, you need to have their contact details on record for you to do this in the first place. Make sure you collect as much information about your customer base as possible!

No longer do you have to fork out thousands of pounds to marketing your products and services, as you have some brilliant tools at your fingertips! Try some of these ideas out over the coming weeks, and don’t forget to leave your suggestions for promoting businesses on the cheap in the comments below. If you have any questions or problems give us a bell! 

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