It can be easy to be unsure about whether your marketing and promotion dollars are working for your business and most business owners would be cautious about considering more promotional spending, especially in the current climate. Luckily, there are a few under-utilised marketing and promotion opportunities that don’t have to break the bank, and some may not cost you a cent! Here are 10 promotional and marketing opportunities that you may be able to better utilise or take advantage of:
1. Figure out what you can afford to spend:
Calculating a marketing budget for your business is essential for effective marketing. One advert in a single newspaper or magazine, one time, once a year will very very rarely create a positive return on your investment. Ongoing and sustained visibility however can create measurable business exposure and customer growth. Knowing how much your business can afford to spend each year, quarter, month and week, will allow you to a) weigh up the cost of individual marketing and promotional activities and b) help you to create a promotions plan for the remainder of the year. Take the time to look at your business finances and determine a realistic budget, no matter how meager.
2. Link to your suppliers websites and content:
It’s OK if you’re not Shakespeare or Hollywood film producer, you can still have creative and interesting content on your business’ social media and webpage. Most large suppliers have in-house or outsourced marketing teams creating killer content about their products. SHARE! Anything that they publish on Social Media, you can share, retweet, favourite or link to. The advantages of liking and following your suppliers and their content online are that you a) showcase your business as a reseller of their products b) gives your business credence by showing that you are involved with a large and well known brand c) livens up your social media account, and can break up your own product related posts.
3. Create your own short video (Hear me out before you skip this one):
You may not be the world’s greatest actor or the most comfortable person in front of a camera, but what you are, is someone who knows things that others don’t, so much so that they will pay you for your service, product, knowledge or skill. Presenting some of your knowledge or the features and benefits of your products in a short video on your website or social media channels shows others that you’re an expert. They will also feel more comfortable that you know what you’re doing or selling. This is also a great way of adding a face to your business, showing potential customers that you’re human and speak their language.
Create a short video about the most common question you get asked, or the most common issue that your customers come to you for. Explain what it is, what causes it and what you or your product can do about it. If you provide a complicated product or service, this is a great opportunity to explain simply what you or your product does, without people having to feel silly for asking.
4. Survey your customers:
The key to meeting your customers’ needs is understanding what those needs are, what your customers think you are offering, and how well they feel that suits their needs. If you’re in the service industry, develop a quick survey to provide upon completion of the service. If you sell products, create a simple survey on your website. You may have to incentivise customers to complete it.
5. Better utilise your free advertising space:
When most business owners think of advertising, they think of paid advertising spots in print media, maybe radio or television, sometimes billboards, bus backs etc. What a lot of businesses don’t think to do is harness their own digital advertising space. Every shop or place of business that sees customers has a sign right on the door. This is a no brainer, you own the space, you want to tell people that you’re there, so you whack up a sign. Building on the same principle of using the space you have to grab attention, leverage the space you have online rather than leave them blank or poorly branded. Some common opportunities include:
• Place a promotional offer or branded image at the end of your email signature
• Create a promotional image highlighting a product/service or offer for your social media pages’ banner. Don’t simply have a photo as your banner image
• Create an engaging offer banner with a “call to action” such as “Call us today to find out more” on your webpage and change it regularly
6. Share your good news:
Does your business sponsor a local sporting team, donate funds or products or time to community events or contribute or support any cause or charity? If you do, tell people about it! Modesty and altruism are great and very easy to do when you’re rolling in millions of dollars of profits. When smaller and local businesses donate or support causes, it is a big deal. Talking about it isn’t boasting or gloating, it’s called leveraging your investment. Big businesses that sponsor big sporting teams or events work on a scale of around 8:1, for every $1 they spend sponsoring a team or event, they spend $8 promoting that sponsorship deal.
Next time you sponsor a cause, grab a quick photo of you and a representative of the cause for your social media page, and if you have a “news” page on your website that you’re never sure what to put in there… write a quick couple of paragraphs about what you did, why you did it (why is it important to you).
7. Ask customers to star in your Social Media Story:
If you’ve done a particularly interesting job, or served a particularly interesting client, why not ask them if you could write a short social media story about it? People enjoy stories, especially if they are out of the ordinary. Grab a quick photo and ask if they would like to be tagged or linked in the story. Connecting with a happy customer’s friends is a huge opportunity.
8. Check in with your customers:
Why not check in with your customers after a sale or service? Some times a courtesy call can uncover an additional sales opportunity, or might allow you the opportunity to deal with a potential issue which you might not have heard about otherwise. Be careful not to harass your clients (probably don’t call at 7pm on a week night), and perhaps let them know as they leave your business that you’ll call to check up.
9. Offer non-competing businesses referrals:
No business exists within a vacuum. Every business works within a sector with a number of similar, but non-competing businesses. A tyre store and motor mechanic are aligned, a florist’s customers may also visit bridal dress shops, an accountant may advise a client who also sees a solicitor. Think about what other businesses might service your clients and refer and network with them. Better still, pass on a referral’s details in person and strike up a mutually beneficial relationship. Some partnerships work so well that cross-business incentives can work extremely well.
10. Own your Google presence:
Have you Googled your business lately? Have you noticed that your business appears to the right of your search results (Computer users only)? Google’s ‘web spiders’ do a great job at looking for business websites, or commonly searched businesses and putting all of the contact information in a nice handy place. If your website is optimised well, your logo, images and contact details are probably already there (If you don’t have a website… we need to talk).
A business page about your business can be created by Google without you. This can be reviewed by users and without correction, it could actually be wrong. This should be more than enough reason to either a) set one up yourself or b) ‘claim’ your business page if it is already set up. It works just the same as the yellow pages… except better, faster, more often utilised, more easily updatable and free.
The chances are that you engage in some of these strategies already. Effective marketing doesn’t need to be expensive to work, these are just a few simple and cost effective strategies you can implement to market and promote your business.