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How to Market Your Business on a Shoestring Budget

BIMS_7.28Most business owners are too busy running their business that they don’t have time to overlook the marketing side of the business. Because of this, they choose to hire a professional to take care of the job.

If you are running a business and you have enough budget set aside for marketing, then good for you. However, not everyone have the money to hire professionals. The good news is you don’t need to spend a fortune to promote your business, and small steps can bring big rewards.

Here are a few recommendations that can help you market your business on a shoestring budget.

Email marketing

If you are starting a business, begin by sending an email to your family, friends, colleagues and anyone who might be interested in what you offer. Be sure to ask permission before adding their names on your email list.

Build your brand on social media

If you want to build a fan base, then engagement should be on top of your priority list. That said, you need to build your brand on social media.

Social media offers a tremendous opportunity to engage with your target audience. Identify your target audience and find a way to pull them in. If you’re pushing salesy content in the hopes of attracting potential customers, then you’re doing it wrong. Post quality contents that they’ll find valuable and interesting. You can also offer some advice, ask questions or solicit opinions.

Build relationships

It can be a lot more challenging to keep a customer than it is to attract new ones. Because of that, it is important to build a relationship with your existing customers. Keep your lines of communications open. Send newsletters or promotional offers to keep them updated about the events you’re hosting, new products you’re launching and current promotions.

Online contest

Online contests can help create buzz. Yes, you need to prepare some good prizes to get participants, but the number of participants and potential leads will be worth the price.

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Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

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Email marketing isn’t dead. In fact customer acquisition has quadrupled over the past 4 years. This goes to show how effective email marketing is for small businesses. That’s great news, provided that your emails are being read by the recipients.

In order to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your marketing efforts, you have to focus on what’s killing your open rates and find a way to fix them. While some mistakes are harmless, the following mistakes could be costly.

Poor frequency

While a flood of emails may distance the customer you’re trying to attract, the same reaction can also be expected if you send emails on an inconsistent basis.

Have a consistent enough cadence that your subscribers would be thrilled to receive an email from you, yet relaxed enough that they don’t wonder whether or not you’re still sleeping at night.

Forgetting to send emails at important events

The introduction of new products or services, promotions and events your business will be holding are some examples of email worthy announcements. If you have an important event to cover, make it a point to create a multi-email campaign around it.

Poor subject lines

Subject lines are your first impression to every email recipient. They have to be clear enough that people know why you’re sending an email, short enough that they fit the screen of tablets and smartphones and enticing enough not to give away the entire email. Also, be cautious about using words and phrases that could mark your email as SPAM.

Unreliable email list

Whether you’re emailing inactive subscribers, not removing hard bounces or collecting bad data, having an unreliable email list can affect your open rates.

The key to a successful email campaigns is clean data. Make sure that all customer information is valid and up to date. Hard bounces should also be removed from your database.

Additionally, 43% of email recipients click the spam button based on the sender email address and name. So, it’s extremely important that the recipient knows who you are and are expecting to receive emails from you.

 

 

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