Do you own and run a small business? Do you want to attract more customers and gain more sales and profit? Do you have enough money to finance your marketing and advertising campaigns to achieve that goal? If you have a tight budget, you may want to try and apply the following 50 free marketing ideas and techniques for your small business. These low-cost marketing tactics, when applied and performed collectively, can be a powerful marketing weapon that can even overcome your biggest competitors. So sit back, relax, enjoy and learn!
1. Use your own head. Use your creativity and think of innovative products.
2. Use your employees’ brains. Get some product ideas from them.
3. Use your customers’ minds. Analyze the products they are looking for.
4. Inspire and motivate your workers to boost their productivity.
5. Prioritize long-term benefits; control the quality of your products.
6. Smile and say hello to your customers.
7. Answer your customers’ questions with the right answers.
8. Give them a warm accommodation and a right amount of convenience.
9. Don’t forget to greet your clients on their birthdays like your close friends.
10. Keep in touch with your existing customers; ask feedbacks and address them properly.
11. Make a Facebook page about your business or product and promote it.
12. Promote your business or product in your personal Facebook wall.
13. Make a Twitter account about your business or product and tweet it personally.
14. Make a blog and educate your visitors regularly.
15. Make guest posts / article contribution to blogs that are relevant to your product or business
16. Target your price to the right customers: low price for the lower class; high price for the upper class.
17. Give your business cards to prospective clients.
18. Join associations, groups and member clubs.
19. Join movements for a cause: fight against poverty, save the environment, etc.,
20. Give sample of your quality products.
21. Gather people’s good testimonials and publish them; let the people do the word-of mouth marketing.
22. Make your office or store clean and green.
23. Make more new friends, regardless of whether they are prospective customers or not.
24. Be kind in everything that you do; preserve your reputation.
25. Help people even in small and tiny ways; be a gentleman if you’re a man.
26. Love your family and relatives; ask them to promote your business and products.
27. Capture great and interesting photos related to your products and business and post them in Flickr or in your Facebook page and profile.
28. Create interesting and useful videos about your business. Then publish them in Youtube and share them in your Facebook page and profile.
30. Be a good taxpayer and befriend the government.
31. Promote the laws of God and the laws of the land.
32. Nominate your business or website to different award bodies. Have an award winning business or website to ensure your win.
33. Hold free seminars and trainings.
34. Hold or sponsor a contest; giveaway your products or services as the prizes.
35. Recognize and honor other people and other businesses so that they might also honor you and your business.
36. Be honest and accomplish your promises.
37. Pay your creditors on time; keep your business liquid and solvent; and keep a good credit score.
38. Offer free pickup and delivery.
39. Always issue official receipts and promote your business in those ORs.
40. Make nice head letters and cover letters in your business documents.
41. Put your business, address and contacts on your email signature.
42. Join online forums and put your business information in your thread signature.
43. Put your business or brand on your car, laptop, bag, key chains or even at the back of your favorite t-shirt.
44. Label your product and packaging with your brand. Label your cups if you sell coffees or your submitted professional reports if you provide professional services.
45. Make a catching logo.
46. Make an interesting and touching slogan or tagline.
47. Train all your staff to develop marketing skills; involve them in your marketing campaigns.
48. Train yourself and don’t stop learning marketing.
49. Listen to your marketing coach; read other marketing ideas online and offline.
50. Be diligent, be patient and be thankful.
I hope this list has made you a better marketer. To your success!
Victorino Q. Abrugar is a marketing strategist and business consultant from Tacloban City, Philippines. Vic has been in the online marketing industry for more than 7 years, practicing problogging, web development, content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, and consulting.
How does “befriending the government” make me a better marketer?
Hi Charleen. That’s a good question. Befriending the government doesn’t mean giving kickbacks or gift money to the government officials. Befriending the government means following the law implemented by the government. If you will learn how to obey the rules of the land, you will be preserving your integrity and reputation. Trust, integrity and honesty are important attributes of a better marketer.
I have to say that some of the techniques listed above are effective. I’ve tried them in doing business marketing and it worked. I think I would have to try other techniques enlisted here which I haven’t tried and hopefully, I’ll do it correctly and succeed in doing it. Thank you for sharing this and you’re doing #14 greatly! 🙂