Market like a pro without a professional budget

Running a small business can be difficult, we’re sure you’ll agree. You see, when you run a small company, you have to do everything like a big business without the big business budget.

You have to make sure that you’re running massive marketing campaigns, designed to grab the attention of the consumer. You have to be ready to hire all the teams that can take your company to the top of the market. You have to make sure that when you do hire these teams, you get the best and that of course, means investing yet more money.

Now obviously, this is worrying because as we mentioned, small businesses are working on small budgets, and you don’t want all that cash going into marketing. For one thing, you need to spend at least some money on making sure that you have the products and services that consumers want to buy, regardless of how great they look. The good news is that there are ways that you can cut down the cost significantly to the point where it isn’t going to be a massive drain on your finances but that you can still run the type of campaign that big boys do. How? We’re glad you asked.

Get the media on your side

This is easily one of the best ways that you can market on a massive scale at a minimum cost. If you get the media interested in your company, then they will get you free advertising and promotion. How do you do this?

Well, you need to make sure that you are doing something that this newsworthy and there are plenty of options here. One of our favourites would be the possibility of running a charity campaign. A charity campaign is always going to spark media interest because it’s a business helping people and doing more than crunching numbers.

Better yet, run a campaign that will benefit the local community. Local media is going to eat this up, and we’d be amazed if there were at least a few headlines dedicated to your business. They might even run a profile on your company because they’ll want to make the most out of a feel-good story like this.

If you want to generate media attention, you need to make sure that you are getting a press officer. You might also want to invest in the services of a social media manager, but a press officer is key for getting the attention of offline sources of media.

Set up a cheap website

What about your website? If you’re running a business online, you have probably heard by now that your website is one of the most important parts of your business campaign. In fact, some people would argue that it’s the most important aspect and we can see their line of thinking here. After all, when you run a website, you are essentially providers users with the biggest and best source of information on your business. It’s also a great tool for releasing new content, updates and indeed, just keeping everything on track in your business brand.

It’s also one of the first impressions that customers are going to get of your business. Particularly if you are running your company exclusively online. Without a great website, customers can just dismiss your business out of hand completely.

The problem, of course, is that great websites cost a lot of money, so we’re told. In fact, if you go online right now, you will find a number of ‘pro’ designers telling you that a great website will cost you an arm and a leg. Why? Well, because your website needs to look unique and stand out. As well as this, the theme of your site needs to fit with what you are going to be offering your customers. It’s crucial that all these pieces fall into place the right way and you can’t do this on a budget. Or, can you?

Actually, you can because rather than investing in a brand new website you can get started on WordPress. WordPress is a website builder so you can use it to make sure that you have the backbones of a working website. The great thing about WordPress as a CMS is that it is really simple, completely adaptable and totally scalable but also free. That’s right, you can set up your site on WordPress for a cost of zero, zilch, nada, nothing. Of course, this does limit you slightly with how unique, and aesthetically interesting your site can be. But that can easily be remedied by using the services of a professional WordPress development agent. WordPress websites can be built up at a minimum cost and still look fantastic because it has all the tools a developer needs and it doesn’t take as much time or effort as building a site from fresh.

Of course, there is the slight issue of SEO, and we do recommend you use a service for this. However, it doesn’t need to be the best. Just make sure it’s not the worse and that they are using legal tactics. The best way to setup SEO is to focus on quality content for your site added regularly. That way, you can get the effect of SEO without the danger of falling into using some bad practices.

Social media magic

Finally, do consider using social media as a fantastically cheap form of marketing. Remember, social media is free, and you can use it as much as you like. So, follow the right profiles, interact with customers and make sure that you are taking social media to its full potential. If you don’t have time to do this, you can use a freelance social media manager. That way, you’ll be able to get all the benefits of a professional without the cost.

As you can see then marketing is an essential part of your business model. But that doesn’t mean it has to be one of the most expensive and if you’re clever you can avoid the heavy costs completely.