Most times especially at the early stages of business it can be very hard to allocate a very big budget for advertising which is why it’s evry effective minimise costs and maximize profit.
Below is a list of cost effective ways to promote your business.
Social media.
There are more than 2.23 billion users on Facebook, 1 billion users on Instagram and 335 million users on Twitter. It’s becoming impossible to grow your sales and customer base without a social media presence. Today’s businesses need to be savvy on social media because that’s where their customers are. A strong social media presence is one of the cost effective ways to promote your business as an entrepreneur.
But it’s one thing to have a social media presence, engagement matters, the big question is are your customers getting engaged on your social media handles?.
Engage your audience by posting relevant content, use of catchy graphics, hashtags and so on.
Refferals.
Asking for refferals from already served and satisfied customers is one of the best ways to effectively promote your business pretty synonymous to word of mouth.
How do you go about asking for a referral?
- Deliver value and go over and beyond.
- When you start work with a client, make a simple deal with them; they will tell others if you do a great job for them.
- Let your customers know who your target audience is, that way, their referral is relevant to your business. Also, be specific on the kind of people you want.
- Develop a referral system that rewards.
- Network and make the most of every networking opportunity.
- Reciprocate and refer too; make a note of clients that refer people to you, so that when you come across someone who needs their service, you can refer the person to them.
- Show your appreciation, because a person who feels appreciated will always do more.
Listing in online local directories.
Listing your business on local directories is one of the cost effective ways to market your business as an entrepreneur. In fact, local listings should be a must for any business as search engines populate these sites at the top of their search results when a user is searching with local intent. Besides, an accurate and updated local listing plays a vital role in local SEO.
Local business directories are online platforms that contain information about your business. Some of the information includes: name, phone numbers, opening time, address, business description, and other data. Most time, it’s free to list your business on these platforms, but you have to manually input the data yourself or claim your business.
Building a contact base on Whatsapp.
The concept of this is to pull contacts of people who are interested in your field of service offer value to them via your status, educate and engage them then show them offers in between.
At times even before engagement you could even pull sales.
How to get contacts.
- Facebook Groups.
- Whatsapp groups.
- Whatsapp Tv’s.
- Insatgram.
Owning and maximizing a website.
Owning and maximising a website is one of the cost effective ways to promote your business as an entrepreneur. A website helps you establish credibility as a business. Even if you’re not selling your product and service online, the online space is the first place prospective customers will check you out. So, owning a website is one of the cost effective ways to promote your business.
After you create a website, you have to optimise your website for search engines, performance, and accessibility.
There are lots of things that search engines look at, that assist them in ranking a website. They look at the relevance, domain names, title tags, header tags, etc. You have to ensure that your website is optimised for SEO.