For business startups with limited budget creating a high-impact marketing can be a tough and demanding job.

Traditional marketing like radio and newspaper ads, brochures and banners will instantly eat into your marketing budget. The good news is, it is possible to introduce a killer marketing campaign at a very low cost!

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net 

3 Reasons to Use Low-budget Marketing Techniques

#1 You can repeat these low-cost marketing strategies over and over to get your company message and brand image across to potential customers (which affects buyers’ decisions enormously). It is effective and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg!

#2 You can direct a low-budget marketing plan into several marketing channels as opposed to traditional marketing mediums. For example, the money that you would spend on a single newspaper ad campaign can be spent on email marketing, social media and your business website combined, to create a larger, more sustained campaign.

#3 With this kind of business marketing plan you can test your campaigns relatively cheaply and stop spending money on a medium once you see that it is not effective. You can experiment with different channels and choose the one that best suits your business.

Her are 5 low-budget marketing techniques:

#1 Finding your target market

Probably the most important part of your marketing plan is finding the right target customer for your business. What you need to do is to split your target market into easily identifiable chunks and then carry out your marketing plan accordingly. For example; If you are setting up a personal training company in your local area, find conversations on Twitter, local groups on Facebook, LinkedIn Groups and local Forums, and find out the cost of placing a banner ad on the site or get involved in the group conversations and message boards as a helpful expert in your niche.

#2 Guerilla marketing

It doesn’t always have to cost thousands! Low cost guerrilla marketing tactics are often a great success and can propel a company image overnight. For those who haven’t heard the term before, guerrilla marketing is a kind of advertising strategy in which un-conventional means are used to promote a product or service. Guerrilla marketing is different to traditional marketing in that it mostly relies on personal interaction and word-of-mouth. You can focus on smaller, more targeted groups to spread the word instead of large-scale media marketing campaigns. Think outside the box for example;  you could introduce a viral YouTube video to be shared across the social media sites, you could ask for customer participation or customer video responses. Maybe ask a public question where people post images of themselves with your product.

#3 Referrals and Loyalty Discounts

Another surefire way to reach new customers is by a system of business referrals. This method is cost effective and proven to increase sales. Word-of-mouth is a powerful tool when it comes to people making decision about buying a product or service. One satisfied customer telling others about your product can do far better than any advertising campaign. Offer an incentive to refer your next sale; you could give a free gift, a discount or some other reward, specific to your business.

#4 Collaboration

You could partner up with another business and help to promote each others services. For example, if you are running a restaurant you could offer local businesses discount coupons or free items from the menu in return for advertising space on their premises. Again, what you offer and what you get in return will vary, so be sure to contact businesses that you believe your potential customers will be frequenting.

#5 In Person

A great way of building credibility and helping spread the word about your services is to offer free seminars, webinars or lectures which focus on building awareness about your niche. This will help place you as an authority in prospective clients’ minds. Find local pubs, bars, restaurants or function rooms – many will let you have a space free of charge if you can guarantee a set number of attendees, as they will purchase food and/or drink on the premises. You could start a regular free Meetup for people to attend, to help build your business brand.

Summary

As you dig deeper into marketing for your small business you will explore more and more inexpensive strategies. Before you launch any business marketing campaign, take some time to think ‘outside the box’ and brainstorm ways of using some of the powerful free social media and other online channels in your strategy. Feel free to add your ideas below or share some successful business marketing campaigns you have created on a budget.