Promoting Your Business on a Tight Budget
There are numerous marketing tools that are available to promote your business, and yes you can get the experts in, but you can also do a lot yourself.
Below are some of the tools you can use and suggestions for simple plus low cost ways to use them effectively to develop your new start up business.
Word of Mouth – Ultimately the best and cheapest form of publicity! Make use of existing contacts, family, friends, business acquaintances let them know about your business and ask them to help promote it by recommending it to others.
Networking - Join your local business clubs, which have regular networking events. Plus don't forget to make the most of perhaps the less obvious types of clubs that you may already belong to such as your local sports club.
Exhibitions – Investigate what exhibitions are available that might suit promotion of your business (use the Internet and contacts). Ideally visit the exhibition beforehand and don’t commit to anything until you have identified what you might achieve from it and compare its likely benefit to the other promotion tools on offer.
Internet – Ideally create your own website as it is an amazing market place to promote your business. However, if you don’t have a website investigate the numerous online directories that are linked to your product or service. Whatever you choose make sure you review the leads you gain from them on a regular basis to determine their benefit and future use.
Press Releases – Identify the media (tv, radio, newspapers, magazines) used by your potential target market and then think of stories about your product or service, which will be interesting to them. To get further ideas look at previous editions to see what gets in. Then write a short press release, not forgetting to accompany it with an eye catching photo and submit them to the relevant media. You will need to persevere with this as writing a press release doesn’t automatically mean it will be published, but it might!
Advertising – Most businesses as a base need to have adverts in the key directories Yellow Pages and BT, which can range from a free directory listing upwards in size and cost! You also of course have newspapers, magazines, tv and radio, but don’t forget the less costly options of parish magazines, noticeboards and shop windows.
It may not cost you the Earth, but you need to understand that promotional tools do not provide a quick fix. It is about building awareness of your business over time by identifying and using the right promotional tools for you!
