Ways to Promote your Business Inexpensively During these Tough Times
So you have no dough to advertise? Have no fear. There are some things you could (and should) still be doing to market yourself until things look up:
1. Social Media Marketing: Join Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube or others and start getting involved in conversations and/or following others. It’s fun and they don’t cost a thing to join — only your time and a computer (which you already have if you are reading this).
2. Public Relations: A very cost-effective way to get your name out there and appear bigger than you are, and drive traffic to your online or physical store. Reporters, editors and producers are always looking for story ideas. Just email them an idea. Here’s one of my proudest and most recent success stories: Wow Clothing Club – Concept: Think Netflix for designer girls’ clothing. After a little pitching to reporters, I was able to secure a Sunday Chicago Tribune article, which was syndicated and appeared in newspapers across the country. This was then followed by a feature on Fox TV’s The Morning Show with Mike & Juliet, both of which resulted in hundreds of unique visitors to the website. Finally, believe it or not, ABC News did an entire segment and a dozen or so evening newscasts ran it with their own intro, resulting in even more exposure. All from an idea, a pitch and a press release to a captive audience. You can do it too!
3. Search Engine Optimization: If you have a website but you’re experiencing a lull in traffic, now is the time to look at your site structure and content and make the necessary changes to get your rankings up there. Just a few tactics can make a big difference in your rankings. How much are you spending on paid search advertising and not converting the traffic to customers? SEO can leave a lasting result on your efforts and you don’t have to pay per click.
4. Email Marketing: Using a cool service like Constant Contact, you can market to your current list of prospects for as low as $15/month. You don’t need to have a design degree either. They have great templates you can customize with your color scheme and logo. And write your content yourself — the best emails have a more casual tone anyway.
5. The Telephone: Yes, in this digital age, the old fashioned telephone (or mobile phone) is still an effective marketing tool. In fact, with more people reaching out online, maybe picking up the phone to reconnect with prospects or clients to see how they’re doing might lead to something…
Which one of these five tips will you use this week?
