It sometimes seems as if creating high quality marketing that drives content and pushes thought leadership is going to cost a business a fortune. After all, all the big companies constantly throw money at the problem, right?
The best marketing is unlikely to be free, but really, there are ways to make sure that your online marketing doesn’t break the bank. Here are some tips and strategies that can help you get your point across.
Utilize free or low cost tools
With services like Yelp, Google’s MyBusiness section, or Facebook’s business Pages, the service itself doesn’t cost anything for your business. At the bare minimum, a business needs to have its contact information, a few high quality photos, and any crucial company information in the places where your customers will search for it.
For every company, crucial information will look different. A restaurant might upload scans of its most recent menus, for example, and a retail store might share a picture of their newest product display.
It is possible to spend marketing budget on all of these sites, but that’s not necessarily helpful for all businesses. Getting your information out there, however, is absolutely necessary.
Make your website mobile friendly
Given the updates to Google’s search algorithms, announced this week, there’s absolutely no excuse for not keeping your website mobile friendly. If you’re not sure how to make that happen, speak to your website developer.
Is it time to outsource?
For beginning businesses, doing all the marketing yourself can make sense. As your business grows, however, outsourcing marketing can save a company money and increase its opportunities for success. After all, while someone else is doing your marketing, you can focus on the rest of your business. Someone trained in marketing may also be better able to take advantage of the rapidly changing world of online advertising and content creation.
Make sure your content strategy is high quality
It’s not enough to just create a blog or post the occasional social media update. If you’re going to use online content to drive your business, you need to commit to it. Take a look, for example, at this page from Life Hacker. It merely offers customers and business owners some tips on preparing helpful to do lists. By offering information for free, it creates trust between the customer and the company.
Give things away for free
When you’re looking to increase your social media presence, to giveaways or discounts for people who like your Facebook page, post a status, retweet a particular Tweet, or review your business on the local Yelp page. Reward customers for their engagement to help your statuses naturally trend and increase your visibility.
Partner with a local celebrity or charity
Look for opportunities to partner with businesses in your area or sphere. Sponsoring an event can help you get your name out there for customers, plus you can post status and share events as a sponsor, and the charity or event may share them with their (hopefully larger!) group of followers.
Create content for other people’s blogs
Find other blogs in your niche and pitch guest blogs to them. Perhaps your flooring company can post about a new type of carpeting on a home decorating blog, or maybe a photographer could share some great selfie tips with a Vlogger who focuses on fashion and beauty.
Getting your name out into the world doesn’t have to destroy your business’s budget. With a little creativity, you can make sure that your company gets the attention it deserves.
How do you get your business’s name into the online world? Tell us your favorite low cost marketing hacks in the comments!
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: Keeping Control of Your Marketing Budget
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