21 Ways To Market Your Small Business On A Shoestring Budget

Thinking of ways to market your small business can be overwhelming, especially considering the cost and return on investment.

Big companies spend millions of dollars every year marketing and building their businesses. Small businesses have a similar need to get the word out but have much more modest budgets.

And if you’re working on a business plan for a new business and getting ready to start your business, your marketing budget is probably tiny.

Here’s the secret that smart marketers hold close to their hearts: marketing your small business doesn’t have to cost a fortune.

Business owners can take advantage of many different strategies and techniques to help spread the word, most of which are low-cost (or even free). All it takes is determination, ingenuity, and a carefully planned marketing strategy.

We’ve evaluated many ideas for marketing your business without breaking the bank and want to share our top 21.

Make it yourself

Create a business blog

Of all of the low-cost tactics you can deploy to raise awareness about your business and its products, writing great content is one of the best.

A good vehicle for that content is a blog.

There are many resources and tips for getting your blog off the ground, but one of the most critical things to remember is to write about your passion. When it comes to your business, you are the expert — find something that excites you and write about it. Your passion and knowledge will help make whatever you create compelling and worth reading.

Start a newsletter

Newsletters and blogs aren’t necessarily exclusive; many successful blogs effectively incorporate them.

If you prefer, you can create a dedicated newsletter with different content than your blog or mix and match existing blog writing with new content as you see fit.

Having an email arrive regularly in your customer’s inbox with content created by you and your business is invaluable.

Start a podcast

Are you one of the lucky ones who likes the sound of their own voice? Or do you have someone on staff with the gift of gab?

Podcasts can be an excellent way to build awareness while making your business more human. After all, the human voice connects, humanizes, and is authentic in ways no other media can be. A well-executed podcast, supported by a solid podcast marketing strategy, can be a great marketing tool.

Follow your brand identity design principles when creating new marketing channels, like podcasts. Your visual identity should be consistent across channels.

Run a sale or create discount coupons

Everyone loves a sale. However, this isn’t just about offering your customers a break on the price. This is about creating unique, interesting promotions to attract new customers and retain existing ones.

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Think about creating add-on discounts to incentivize customers to spend a certain amount. Adding free shipping to an order after the customer spends at least $50 is a great way to remove a barrier to purchase and build new sales.

But keep in mind that value isn’t only measured in discounts. As we wrote previously:

Obviously, knowing your audience is the first step in determining what valuable content is. Your content’s value is measured by how useful it is to that audience. And, remember that “value” doesn’t only refer to promotions, discounts, and coupons. Informational content has great value as well – assuming it’s information that your audience will find interesting or useful.

So you might consider running a promotion around some of your content and offering discounts as part of that promotion to generate some buzz.

Create product samples

Removing barriers for new customers to experience your products is an excellent way to build your base. “Try before you buy” helps customers feel confident they can try your products without fear of commitment or cost.

Customers want to know that they’re making a well-informed decision, and providing samples can give them compelling information to influence their decision. Combining this with other marketing efforts can have a noticeable effect on your business.

Connect and Communicate

Form partnerships with like-minded companies

The old saying that “two heads are better than one” can also be applied to business partnerships.

Working with another company with complementary products, services, or customers can benefit both sides.

You can coordinate and amplify your marketing efforts. You can also explore other ways of growing your businesses through product or service bundling or joint discounts.

Create a cool giveaway

Promotional giveaways are a tried-and-true way of building consumer awareness and getting your name out there, sometimes literally. There are old standards like balloons and t-shirts, and then there are more useful (and thus potentially more used) items like tote bags, umbrellas, and water bottles.

Another option is to run a contest with some of your products or services as a prize. The most important thing is to ensure your chosen prize has the broadest appeal to your audience. You also want to effectively promote the contest or giveaway – your customers can’t participate in something they don’t know about.

In the end, make sure you talk about and publicize the results. People who missed that giveaway will know to keep their eyes open for the next one.

Guerrilla marketing

It used to be that guerrilla marketing was the weapon of choice for scrappy startups and unorthodox small businesses, but those days are over. You can’t walk a block in the downtown of most cities without seeing posters, signage, and other elements of guerrilla marketing plastered everywhere by “street teams” hired by big marketing firms.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take advantage of this type of marketing. It can be very effective (and low-cost) if done well. The key is to make sure you hone the message you put out into the world and plan how to onboard customers who respond. Here are some examples of effective guerrilla marketing.

Don’t try too hard to “go viral,” and above all, obey the law. Guerrilla marketing is a little risky, but the risk should be in the campaign’s success or failure and not in running afoul of the law. The goal is to foster and grow your relationship with the greater community.

Networking

There are many ways to network: send someone an email, make a phone call, engage on social media, etc. There are few things as effective as getting out and talking to people.

But where should you start?

As daunting as it may be for some, networking is a skill that can be learned. There are ample resources online and in the bookstore for how to network more effectively, but one thing that can really make a difference is to find someone to mentor you or be your “wing person.” If you can, partnering up with someone more gregarious or at ease with networking is a great way of easing into networking.

Other than that, the best advice is to make networking regular. The more you do it, the more comfortable you’ll feel and the better you’ll be at it.

Run an event

If you can’t find a business event to go to, maybe it’s time you ran your own! Holding your own event means you have more control over the target audience, the message you put out there (you did have a message, right?), and what takeaways you want your audience to have.

The downside is you have to plan your own event. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but having a well-thought-out plan is key.

If you’re stuck for ideas on what kind of event to hold, here are some ideas:

  • Hold an open house where customers can come “behind the scenes” and interact with your products and your staff in ways they normally aren’t allowed to.
  • Find and host an interesting speaker whose message or talents mesh with your marketing strategy.
  • Have a fundraising event for a charity you support.
  • Host your own networking event.
  • Run an online seminar on a topic relevant to your audience. For example, many design-related businesses run seminars that cover topics specific to designers.
  • Set up a “pop-up” store in a location you’re interested in but don’t have a presence yet.

Share and educate (run a web seminar, share time-saving templates, etc.)

Many companies have processes and tools that allow them to run their businesses more effectively. Think about how you could share some of that knowledge with the community. People appreciate information-sharing, and it can help build relationships that you might not have uncovered had you not shared in the first place.

The adage that a rising tide lifts all boats holds here. By paying it forward and sharing some of your secret sauce with the community, you can create connections and encourage others to do the same.

Create a referral/affiliate program

Everyone knows word of mouth is one of the most persuasive marketing tools. Tap directly into that by creating a referral or affiliate program that rewards customers for sharing your business. This can be an incredibly effective way to build more business while encouraging stronger product loyalty from your current customer base.

Add a personal touch (write a handwritten thank you letter, send a video shout-out, etc.)

Adding a personal touch and providing exemplary service is a cornerstone of most small businesses, so why not take that even further? Including a handwritten note with an order or sending customers a surprise thank you card can personalize your service and make your business feel authentic and human.

Customers remember when they’ve been treated with respect and like real people, and this can’t help but build awareness and goodwill with your audience.

Ask your customers for their input

Your loyal customers are often chock-full of ideas, criticisms, and comments on how they think your business, products, and services could be better. People appreciate being asked their opinion. Several services make gathering customer feedback and making it actionable easy. The key is not to expect your customers to solve your problems for you — that’s your job — but feedback can help you determine what kind of outcomes or results they want.

You and your company must be receptive to feedback and open to change. Asking people for their input and then doing nothing about it is worse than not asking. Set expectations for what your company can do and what your customers can expect, then try your best to meet or exceed them.

Ask for testimonials or reviews

Another way to gather customer information is to open the floor for reviews and testimonials. Having comments made by real people about your business can be a big motivator for new customers. Here’s a peek at crowdspring reviews, for example.

It’s important to remember asking your customers for reviews is asking them to give you some time. Respect that, and be prepared to act on consistently negative reviews. People want to know that reviews are fair and unbiased.

Celebrate your company’s successes

Has your business had an especially great month? Did something newsworthy happen recently, like your company hit a big sales mark or launched a cool new feature? Don’t forget to celebrate these events with your customers and the community. Not only does that give you a reason to publish some PR, but it also shows that your company is changing and evolving. So break out the bubbly and blow some horns!

Get efficient

Clean up your customer lists

It’s useless for anyone if you’re sending notices and newsletters to customers who don’t exist anymore (because their email addresses have changed or they’ve stopped using your product). It’s hard to measure your marketing effort’s efficiency if your customer list is outdated.

We’re not talking about demolishing everything you’ve built up to now. Still, carefully pruning your customer list ensures the people you’re talking to are actually listening.

Reevaluate your target audience – create buyer personas

Personas are fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers. If you haven’t spent the time creating some, it’s worth the effort. The creation of personas can help you understand who your customers are. This helps you create content and marketing campaigns that speak more effectively to them.

Personas usually come from the combination of market research and insights from your customers. Surveys, interviews, polls, and other methods are some of the ways you can gather information from your customers.

Remember that you want to speak to a broad sample of your customers, both good and bad. Negative feedback is often just as valuable (or more so) than positive as it helps you determine where you need to improve and sometimes what kind of customer you don’t want to target.

Use your employee’s email signatures more effectively

One straightforward marketing tactic you can try is to take advantage of your staff’s email signatures. Every email your staff sends is a contact point between your company and your customers and another opportunity for a marketing message. It’s relatively easy to add some text to every outgoing email.

We’re not discussing embedding giant banner ads or long-winded copy at the end of every email. A short sentence with a call to action can work well and is unobtrusive enough to avoid being crass or too opportunistic.

Optimize your site’s search engine listing

If your site is like the vast majority of sites, the traffic it gets from search results is probably a lot higher than direct traffic to the homepage. Optimizing how your site appears in search results is a cheap and effective way to increase site traffic. Google has many specialized search result templates that help people find the best information, and you can take advantage of these with a schema.org document.

Schema is a way to tell search engines what your content means, not just what it says. For example, marking up an article with the correct information can mean its search result includes the title and the author’s name, a star rating, a category, and more. This kind of metadata can boost clickthroughs to your site.

Schema.org has a lot of information on how to set up a schema document for your site. It can get quite technical, but the basics can be learned fairly easily. Google has a tool called Google Tag Manager that makes this a little easier, and Search Engine Land has a good primer on how to tag your site with the correct schema.

Speed up your web site

Search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing worldwide won’t matter much if your site is slow and takes too long to load. Not only can a slow site deter customers from using your site, but Google’s search algorithm also punishes slow-loading sites by placing them lower in results (due to the poor user experience slow sites can have).

There are a lot of methods and tools for testing and improving site performance. Kinsta has a good introduction to website performance optimization for those looking for a primer.

Next steps

Often marketing is one of the first things to get cut when businesses try to keep costs low. This is usually a big mistake. Successful marketing campaigns can be created by any business, even if their budget is tiny.

One of the strengths of small businesses is their uniqueness and personality. Often the humanity behind the brand is what separates small businesses from big corporations, and this can shine with a good marketing strategy. Thanks to social media and the internet, business owners can have just as much reach and visibility as the bigger companies, and as we’ve shown here, they can often do it on a shoestring budget.

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