Five no-cost marketing ideas

Written on 30 July, 2012 by Tim Reid
Categories Marketing Tags marketing small business

This article has been provided by Tim Reid from Small Business Big Marketing – Australia’s #1 small business marketing podcast.

There’s a common misconception amongst small business owners that great marketing must cost a fortune.  Rubbish!

There’s plenty of great marketing ideas out there that cost nothing except time … And even then, it’s not as if they take hours to implement.  So, here’s five NO-COST marketing ideas you can implement in less than 30-minutes:

  1. Ring three Clients you’ve not done work for in the past six-months. Get a sense from them of how business is.  In particular what problems they’re experiencing. Then, let them know what you’ve been working on, update them on some of your most recent projects / successes and suggest how these may apply to their business.  Then ask them, straight up, if there’s anything you can be of assistance with.   Note: I say RING, not email, Facebook or text … RING them and have a conversation. What a crazy idea!
  2. Ring three clients that you have done work for in the past six months and ask if they’d be happy to refer you on to others they may know who could benefit from your services or products. If they say there is, then you’re away … Then ask for their names and contact details. And if you’re feeling exceptionally cheeky, then ask if they’d mind introducing you via email. This turns a cold call warm!
  3. Update some pages on your website. Google will reward you with increased rankings as they love fresh, relevant, unique content. Avoid trying to be creative, or to write the next best-seller, just update some pages. That’s all!
  4. Find some blogs that are read by your prospects and customers. This is easier than it sounds.  All you need to do is Google your industry or brand and add the word ‘Blog’ to the end of the Google search.  So, if you’re a Chiropractor, then maybe search for ‘Chiropractic blogs’. Once you’ve found them then read a few posts and leave a comment at the end. This is a great way to build some backlinks back to your website. Google loves to see other sites pointing to yours. They think you’re really popular!
  5. Review your existing offer and ask what you need to do to make it better. I mean seriously better. Without spending a fortune, you may surprise yourself by finding the smallest of tweaks that takes your offer from being good to great. It maybe the addition of a guarantee, the promise of faster delivery times, a simple improvement to its packaging or a couple of add-ons that cost you very little but have a high perceived value to the customer.

So, there’s five NO-COST marketing ideas, each taking no more than 30-minutes to implement. What would you add to this list?

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