6 inexpensive ideas to promote your business successfully

When you have a small business you are most likely also responsible for promoting your business. That’s not marketing per se, rather just one aspect of it. There are a host of ways to promote your business from sponsorship to media advertising and to be honest many of them cost significant money and need professional assistance.

So remember that promoting your business is about having your business consistently in front of your target audience so that when they are ready to buy your product or service, they will think of you.

Here are some simple creative ideas that do work and don’t cost very much at all apart from time and, in some cases, stepping out the comfort zone a bit

1. Offer to Guest Blog for someone with a better following than you – often they will be glad of someone to bolster their content but whatever you post must be good, topical and relevant. You never know you might get asked to blog again for them. The cross links do help

2. Adopt a relevant hashtag for your social media and keep on using it. Try to reflect your business and put yourself in the shoes of your customers and think what they would use to search for you.

3. Go ‘LIVE’ as often as you can on social media and share useful industry snippets. These should be short, well shot with good sound. Topics should be really useful to people so they want to come back. Adopt a regular time to do this: monthly weekly, daily, whatever you can manage. Remember to also post these clips to Youtube. Youtube is the second largest search engine after Google and people will use to find out “How” or “Why” for just about anything.

4. Do a Random Act of Kindness / Thoughtfulness – this can go a long long way. Think about dropping off a box of biccies, a wee plant or flowers on a birthday……

5. Create a Press Release if you have a new product launch or a new member of staff comes on board etc. – here’s some great tips how to write one. Journalists love getting good articles – they all want the scoop. Remember to include one or two really high quality images.

6. Be the featured speaker at your networking events – most people DON’T volunteer thinking they will make a fool of themselves or be judged. So the opportunity is high and you’ll be great if you choose a topic you know backwards. Your passion and expertise will shine through. After all, people want the expert, not the quite good.

None of these cost more than a few pounds! Do let us know if you use any of these and how you get on. Or perhaps you can share what’s worked for you