I get it. Last year was one to put in the books—but not the financial ledger kind! Too many small- to medium-sized businesses were “seeing red” because of the havoc the pandemic wreaked on their bottom line.
But we have rounded the corner. We are seeing returning signs of normalcy in the marketplace. Now is the time to give an aggressive nudge in kick-starting your business’ growth potential.
But How?
Your business is just now getting back on its feet—you’re hiring employees to fill the renewed need, you’re covering overhead expenses that have been cut the past year…you don’t have a lot of extra funds in the budget for aggressive marketing right now.
The good news is that with the internet and good old community networking, you can still take advantage of a successful marketing strategy without needing to spend a lot.
Some very successful, yet cost-effective marketing channels:
Your website: every business has one (hopefully!). Update it, refresh it, add meta-tags for better search engine query results.
New and refreshed content: This applies to your website and so much more. Have a blog? Start one. Use your smartphone to create short videos that people can engage with to know more about you, your business, your product. Post not only your website, but a company YouTube channel.
Email marketing: Reconnect with those customers whom you may have lost touch with the past year. Resurrect your lead generation email list and re-engage with those folks, reminding them that you’re still here and you’re ready to provide them with what they need!
Social media engagement: Sending organic posts that result in people clicking on your website is a win-win marketing strategy that only costs the time you (or a qualified employee) take to create and publish the posts.
Networking opportunities: People are anxious to get back out and about—to engage with other people at community gatherings. Take advantage of these opportunities with a booth or a tent, some free lemonade and a smiling face to engage with these folks.
Now that you have some great, very cost-effective marketing ideas, make sure those ideas start moving your business forward again. The costs freed up by using the ideas mentioned above can be used to recruit
who will help you develop a marketing strategy that fits your “getting back into the game” budget, with compelling messaging and content to reignite your business. Then, when those “kick-start” marketing strategies have fired up that sales engine, implement the very wise “you have to spend money to make money” philosophy and expand your marketing budget to plan out a longer-term marketing strategy that keeps that engine oiled and moving forward