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THIS WEEK
10 Simple Marketing Tips for Your Business You Can Implement Today for Less than $100 each
ALSO IN THIS EDITION
10 Simple Marketing Tips for Your Business You Can Implement Today for Less than $100 each
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Times are tough and many businesses are struggling to generate new clients through the door. The temptation is to cut the marketing budget as a way of making ends meet. Cutting back your marketing is a recipe for long-term business disaster. But with some clever thinking, you can still market your business and keep your books in the black.
Here are 10 simple ways you can market your business for less than $100 each (and most are free!)
- Buy a pile of thank you cards at a discount shop. Send them to your best clients or just to clients at the end of each job. Hand-write a note of gratitude and your wishes for their success.
- Capitalise on your success. If you are in the paper or a magazine, get copies of the article or story and send them out to your clients or prospective clients with a "With compliments slip" and a handwritten note sharing your news.
- Share information. If you read a great article, copy it (with appropriate referencing of course) and send it to clients/prospects who you think would also appreciate the information with a "Thought this may interest you note". It shows you remember their interests enough to keep in touch.
- Polish your autoresponders. If you have an autoresponder system for your business, adding in new ones or polishing the words of the ones you already have is a great investment for your future.
- Call people. Yes ... pick up the phone and touch base with your favourite clients of the past year to see how business is going for them and the results of any past campaigns you did for them. Many times you will generate new business from the contact.
- Go to a networking event. Networking is not about grabbing as many cards as you can, but forming relationships with people. Some may or may not turn into clients. For example, I met with one woman at Chamber of Commerce events for 4 years before she finally converted to a client. Be friendly and give with no thought of reward. Not all networking events need to cost and arm and a leg – be selective and find the ones that you want to attend regularly.
- Create something unique about your business. One of my clients is an exceptional pool builder and one of the things that makes him so special is the thickness of the concrete in his pools coupled with the zinc coated steel supports (compared to traditional steel, which can rust). He is creating paperweights of his concrete and zinc of the thickness of his pool walls. A few extra dollars of material and a mountain of amazing referrals. Most businesses have something that is unique to them – how can you leverage your uniqueness?
- Record a training session. You are an expert at your business. You know more about your particular patch of the world than anyone else does. Record a 15-20 minute MP3 about the facts on roof insulation, or how to maintain your forklift or whatever you particularly know about and give this to your clients or prospective clients. While professional sound is ideal, you can still get a good result with a quality computer headset and free software such as Audacity. Good printers allow you to print directly to disc – so you can create a professional looking CD-Rom to mail it out as part of your proposal pack.
- List your business on Google Maps & online directories. Many online directories are free to list your business. Find the best ones and include full details of your business. Google maps is essential – fill in all of the details about your business so you can be found in search engines.
- Get Twittering. Twitter is free to join – all it takes is time to learn what to do and how to do it. Use Twitter as a form of online networking – forging relationships and sharing information rather than as a form of online store "buy this ... buy this". If you use it correctly you will get some great results in terms of growing your business.
So there you have it – 10 simple things to market your business that are free or very low cost. Now, there's no excuse not to be marketing your business!
| HR Tip of the Week - Simple Tips to Communicate with your Team |
 If you have more than one person in a business, you need to find a way to share information between you. While you can invest in high cost communication tools and devices, sometimes simple things also work.
Day book/diary. Buy a cheap exercise book and jot down things that the other team members may need to know . You can do this as they happen, or at the end of each shift. Just make sure you have a rule with your team about not using the book to "dob in" team members or badmouth customers.
Pinboard. The old fashioned notice board still works - where you pin up notices to your team.The trick is to do it regularly and get your team to initial that they have seen the note.
Oneline sharing .If you are more technologically savvy, then look at things such as Google docs as a form of electronic pinboard. There is also a lot of free and low cost software that helps people share documents and information such as forums & wikis. Talk with your IT support person to see what would work for your business.
Team meetings. Have regular team meetings. These should be held in paid time and all people should attend if possible. If not possible then allow people to phone in to hear the meeting on a conference call using Skype, or record the meeting so people who weren't there can also share the information.
I am a firm believer in making life easier for people. While I know and sing the praises of a 100% tailor made proposal to win new business, not everyone can afford a copywriter like me to help them create their ideal proposal template.
I mean, it takes many hours for us to learn all about your business, what makes it unique and then help craft the value proposition in a compelling way that makes your prospects eagerly convert to paying clients. All of this comes at a cost.
If your business is not yet ready for that level of investment or is in start-up phase, then a great place to start is with a professionally designed proposal template, which you can then tailor to suit your needs.
That's why I recommend the Proposal Kit. The pack includes not only a pile of templates to help you write winning proposals, it includes spreadsheets to help you get your costing right (no more under-quoting). There's software to help you manage your project and a stack of other goodies.
The Proposal Kit is a really great foundation for winning more business - take a look and let me know what you think.
You can learn some great business lessons from amazing places. Masterchef has some brilliant lessons - and most of them have nothing whatsoever to do with food! In this post I give you a whole stack of things that Masterchef can teach small business.
exuberantly yours
Ingrid
Heart Harmony
PS: This week's Small Business Tips blog included a post about "Yes - they really can smell your fear."
Legal stuff: This newsletter is intended only a general guideline for Australian businesses. You should seek specific advice for your situation rather than relying only on this newsletter
Earnings disclaimer. Some of the content may include advertorial information, which means I may receive financial compensation for the products I recommend. But - unless I know and trust the product, I will not recommend it.
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