One of the facts of life is that marketing is hard, and for business owners doing it on their own, it can be even harder. But it does not need to be.
The point of this article is to share a few of my favourite, budget-friendly methods to boost your business through effective marketing.
1. Create a FREE Google My Business profile
Adding a Google Business Profile is a must for your business, especially because it is completely free. Have you ever wondered how businesses show up in google maps or with a location map when you search on Google? This is because they have a Google My Business profile. It allows you to promote your business through Google. Here is what Google says about it:
“Google My Business is a free tool that allows you to promote your Business Profile and business website on Google Search and Maps. With your Google My Business account, you can see and connect with your customers, post updates to your Business Profile and see how customers are interacting with your business on Google.”
Setup your Google My Business profile.
2. Plan your marketing
This may seem obvious, but if you are like most small business owners, you are too busy focus on other areas such as operations, sales, finance, etc. and getting to your marketing activities usually happens in an unplanned way. The downside to reactive marketing is that it generally costs more money with less or no return on investment.
Allocating at least 2 days per month to planning your marketing activities and 1 hour per day to implement and monitor your plan is the best way to start adding structure to your marketing.
3. Get creative with your creative
A strong presence is important if you want to stand out from your competition. To achieve this, you need a consistent brand look and feel, which means you need to use graphic design thinking with every piece of marketing from what you post on social media to the signage outside your shop.
The first prize would be to use a marketing agency to treat your brand with graphic design services, but this is not always possible. As an alternative, consider using free creative tools such as Canva or Snappa and free stock image sites such as Unsplash or Pixabay will enable you to create beautiful and consistent-looking content to help make your brand look professional, creative and consistent.
4. Use social media ads for retargeting
Social media is a powerful marketing tool, especially when it is used to its full potential.
Allocating a small budget to use social media advertising is always a great way to reach the right target groups for your business. The best part about social media advertising is that it is the cheapest form of advertising with the most powerful targeting tools available.
To maximize the potential of social media use tools such as the Facebook Business Manager to run your ad campaigns, set up your website pixel, so you can retarget people who visit your website - on social media, create custom and lookalike audiences to advertise directly to specific audiences on social media.
5. Create a FREE WhatsApp Business Profile
WhatsApp is the most powerful direct communication tool for personal use, and the WhatsApp business profile offering is also a powerful tool to open direct communication channels to and from your customers.
Setting up a business profile on WhatsApp is completely FREE, and the button can be directly linked to your social media channels and your website for easy access for your customers. Remember as with all direct forms of communications make sure that you comply with the POPI and Privacy regulations, always get permission before you start marketing your products and services directly to your databases.
Here are a few more suggestions that you can use your imagination for:
6. Create Video Tutorials
7. Tell customer stories
8. Create a buzz around new products
9. Develop a customer referral program
10. Launch a competition
Need help with your marketing?
At G and T Impressions we help our clients increase brand awareness by targeting the right audiences and generating sales leads that are most likely to convert to sales. When you choose to work with us you get access to the time and experience of a company that delivers functional and creative marketing services through graphic design, marketing management and digital marketing.
Ready to get started?
Contact us to learn more.