If you’re running a small business, the way you approach your potential clients and make your presence known on the market is incredibly important. However, if you’re running a small business, you may also have a fairly tight budget for marketing activities. In that case, this is the article for you! Allow us to share with you five budget-friendly marketing ideas for small businesses that people often overlook but which can be immensely beneficial when it comes to acquiring leads and new clients and ultimately helping your company grow. Here they are!
Local SEO
No business, big or small, can reach its full potential these days without a website. And in order for that website to be successful and generate traffic, leads and eventually clients, it needs to be optimized properly to rank highly on search engines. That process of optimization is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization), with a particularly important subcategory of local SEO. This special kind of optimization helps your website to rank at the top of search results in your area (town, neighborhood etc.). This means that whenever someone in the vicinity searches for the services and/or products you offer, your website will pop up first. If you don’t know how to optimize your website properly, worry not – companies like Legmark have been doing that for years for all type of legal type of clients, so give them a call and see how they can help you grow.
Create a Google My Business profile
We all know that Google is the most powerful search engine in the world. By far. Therefore, any opportunity it offers should be seized immediately, and opening a profile of your company on Google My Business is one of the best opportunities you can come across. This profile contains the company’s name, address, phone (the so-called NAP) and all other ways people can contact you. Not to mention that it can show them on a map where and how to find you. It’s almost like Google is taking people by their hand and guiding them right to your doorstep. Plus there’s a way to interact with your clients in the form of reviews, posts etc.
This is also one of the crucial aspects of local SEO, so skipping this will always be a huge blow to your overall traffic. Take a few minutes and create an account – it’s very simple!
Give free advice and help
No matter which field you operate in, giving free advice to people who are in need of assistance often goes a long way in acquiring new customers. This way, you show others that you genuinely care and want to help them instead of trying to squeeze out every last cent out of them. Legal and medical businesses can especially benefit from this approach, but other fields are not excluded, either.
Obviously, you won’t do everything for free, but covering some frequently asked questions on your website can be a great idea. You can also provide tips as an expert in the field on how to avoid the most common problems, or maybe even set up a live chat to talk to your potential clients directly. Once people see they can rely on you to help them with the basics, they will know they have someone to turn to when they encounter a more serious problem.
Social media
If your business doesn’t have a social network account – what are you waiting for??? There are BILLIONS of people on these things, and a huge number of them can be reached in a few clicks. On social media, you can easily join groups where people who you know share your interests are, set up co-operations with other businesses and do an incredible amount of stuff that will directly benefit you. And the biggest social networks are FREE! So, you don’t have to make an investment, but you can access thousands upon thousands of people who are actually your target audience. Social media accounts are pretty much obligatory for every business.
Be a part of the community
Last but not least, you should get out there and mingle! Attend local events, offer to be a speaker where possible, and let people see that there is a human face behind your company. That way, you will instantly become much closer to your potential clients, and if you have dealt with some of them before and left a good impression, they might recommend you to other visitors of the event you participate in. The word of mouth can travel incredibly fast in circumstances like these, so always be ready to at the very least exchange contact information wherever possible.
