As a business owner, it is often hard to balance your desire to grow and expand with the cost that is usually attached to it. Most marketing strategies seem costly, and you’re unsure whether they will be worth the investment.

That’s why this article aims to ease your predicament. It introduces you to 5 marketing strategies that are not only cost-effective but also highly successful.

#1. Try Social Media Marketing

Cheap, easy to do, and having the potential to reach virtually anyone, marketing using social media is a definite YES from us. You can choose from a variety of different social media platforms to market your business, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, etcetera.

So you’ve selected your platform(s). Now what?

One way you can share details about your business, new products, or any promos is by creating attractive flyers and posters, which you can then post on social media.

Gone are the days when you’d need to hire an expensive graphic designer for this purpose; now, you can just design your own flyers and posters using services like PosterMyWall. Their dedicated flyer maker contains hundreds of templates for you to choose from.

If you’re looking for posters to post promotional content on your socials, PosterMyWall’s poster maker is the tool for you. 

You can browse until you find a design that suits your aesthetic, and there you have it. Easy promo done cheap!

#2. Stay In Touch With Customers

The customer knows best’ is a contested cliche these days, but in some sense, it does have a ring of truth to it.

Whether running a hot dog stand or a book shop, you must know what the customer wants if you wish to grow successfully. And what better way to know that than to ask them?

There are a couple of ways in which you can maintain a good relationship with your customers and figure out what they need from you:

• Surveys: These are easy to do using apps like Google Forms and don’t take too long for customers to fill up either. Keep these short and sweet, and remember, consistency is key.
• Reviews: These can be combined with social media marketing from the first tip. For example, you can appeal to your customers on your Facebook page to leave a review every time they use a product or service you offer. Customers often give detailed, helpful reviews on Facebook.
• Direct contact: To make your customers feel ‘special’, you can even go the extra mile and contact them directly, for instance, via email. This can be done after a sale or upon some problems or delays faced by them. Ask what they thought of your service or product. Inquire what, if anything, went wrong, and offer genuine support.

Maintaining a strong relationship with your customers in ways like these is essential to figuring out the next step you can take in expanding or promoting your business. It gives you a feel for which business decisions will be appreciated by your target audience and which might fall flat.

#3. Utilize Calls to Action

Calls to action are, simply put, suggestions and recommendations for customers on what to do once they have received some specific information from you.

For example, in one of the flyers you designed using Tip #1, you might have advertised a sale on some of your products, including the dates of the sale and the venue of your shop or the address of your website.

Now, the customer is primed to take the next action, which you can alert them to by adding a colorful CTA proclaiming “Shop Now!” or “Click the link!”.

Using CTAs will ensure your marketing does not come to a dead-end but instead prompts customers to concrete action, leading to increased sales and other substantial benefits for you.

#4. Dabble in Video Marketing

In today’s fast-paced world, where most of your customers are losing their attention spans, it would do you good to try your hand at a medium that keeps them engaged.

Traditional text or image marketing, while important, is no match for the rapidly shifting, consistently engaging visuals that a video provides. So why not try making a colorful introduction video for your business?

You can use either slides and voice-over combination or film an actual video breaking down the aspects of your business in real time. It is entirely up to you and your creativity.

The bottom line is that video marketing is a great way to promote business, even if you’re an amateur video maker and editor, simply because of how engaging it is for today’s average consumer.

#5. Write a Blog

The best example of content marketing is to write a blog. This is one of the best ways to promote your business while staying within budget.

We say this because of the way Google’s search algorithms work. Google brings websites that regularly produce new and informational content higher up on search results. This directs more traffic to your website (and other social media platforms via internal links).

All you have to do is set aside some time and dedication to consistently write a handful of medium-length, interesting blog posts a month about your business and/or peripheral topics.

A must-have tool in your marketing-on-a-budget toolbelt!

Conclusion

While promoting your business, you will obviously need to take risks, but these risks do not have to be solely financial.

As these five tips show you, taking creative risks and leaps can be extremely rewarding for you, too. So, are you up for the challenge?