5 Free Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses
Let’s start with a reality check. Small businesses have a really tough time competing with the big brands. Not only do established businesses have the money to grab the prime advertising; they also know how to draw a crowd.
What’s a small business to do about it? There’s plenty you can do, and most of it won’t cost you a penny. It just takes more creativity, more planning, and a dollop of energetic focus on your marketing. To get you started, Imagefix has come up with 5 marketing ideas for small businesses that won’t cost you a thing (well, hardly anything anyway).
1. Have a Social Media Competition
The trick with social media is to draw attention – and a competition does that really well. People are never going to tire of loving free stuff, so bundle up some of your products, or offer a great experience, in order to get yourself noticed. Get participants to like the post, leave a comment, follow the account, and tag a friend to enter.
Marketing Tip. This is where the energy comes in – you need to keep engaging every step of the way. Start conversations, respond to comments, run polls, ask questions; the competition will get you some attention, be sure to use it.
2. Share Your Specialist Knowledge
Being a powdered yeast manufacturer sounds dull, but a video explainer on baking the perfect loaf is likely to go down a storm. What expertise could you share that your customers would love to know about? Could be baking a cake, writing a will, stopping a leaky tap, or getting a featured snippet on Google.
Marketing Tip. Work in the medium you feel most comfortable with. It could be a podcast, a webinar, a video, or a blog. Once you’ve made your choice, apply that energetic focus whilst the ideas hot and, remember – it doesn’t have to be perfect, just friendly and engaging.
3. Create an Unboxing Surprise
You know what people love almost as much as free stuff? Surprises. We’re all kids at heart and marketers do well to remember that. Put together some nicely packaged promotional boxes around Easter, Valentines, Halloween. Make them affordable and limit the supply. Then find someone who’s willing to do an unboxing video to generate demand for the next mystery box.
Marketing Tip. This is all about brand, so make sure that your packaging is in line with your business. Hand finished packaging is highly valued, and individually wrapped items are a delight to receive.
4. Start Asking for Testimonials
You need testimonials. Why? Because 92% of online consumers say that they don’t trust a business that has no reviews. They don’t want perfect; in fact, perfect is off-putting, but they do want recommendations that look and sound real, from people who have used the product or service.
Marketing Tip: It’s hard to get customers to leave reviews because they don’t know what to say. If you offer them a few questions, they’re more likely to respond:
- Why were you searching online for…?
- What was it about us that caught your eye?
- What were you looking for in our product/service?
- Did we deliver?
- Would you recommend us?
5. Start Using SEO in Your Content
Search Engine Optimisation is how your content gets delivered to searchers on Google or Bing. It’s all about understanding what words people use when they’re searching for products/services like yours, and then using them in the content you create for social media, blogs, or your website. Using SEO is like making your online material ‘Google Ready’; it makes you easier to find and helps with your search engine ranking.
Marketing Tip. There’s lots of free resources to help you with getting your head around SEO. One quick way to get started though is to check out the kinds of keywords your biggest competitor is using!
Looking for Marketing Support?
Imagefix specialises in creating great marketing ideas for small businesses. We not only do that, we also have a digital marketing team that implements them and turns small businesses into medium sized businesses, or even global businesses in a few cases. Thing is, we understand the journey and we don’t sell dreams we know we can’t deliver on.
So, if you’re looking for some great marketing ideas and a friendly digital marketing team that wants you to succeed, let’s talk – 01525 715608
