For many small businesses engaging in marketing activities is challenging mostly due to the costs involved. How do you get the word out about your product/service on a shoestring? Here are a few marketing tools that are sme budget friendly, are highly effective and can be easily done yourself
Mobile marketing
This mainly involves the use of mobile devices for marketing purposes. People are so addicted to their mobile devices these days and that presents a great opportunity to engage them personally. One of the best but often missed tool is the use of SMS. It has a high open rate, is cheap (sometimes free) and is permission based and therefore has a high rate of success. Encourage your customers to sign up for offers, promotions and useful services. Google has a free sms service you can use.
Email marketing
Another effective marketing tool is sending commercial emails to clients usually via blog posts or newsletters. This becomes very effective if you have a database of clients email addresses. You can build this database by asking your clients to opt-in to receive your emails during your daily engagements. Using an email marketing software allows you to automate your emails and measure their effectiveness (there are features to tell you who opened/read your mail and what actions took. Mailchimp and Reachmail are examples of softwares with free versions any business can use.
Social media
Social media has added an interesting dynamic to the marketing mix of businesses. People assess your social media pages to verify your credibilty. The important thing to remember is to consistently build your audience and regularly engage them. Facebook, Linkedin and twitter provide insights (for free) that can be used for data analysis and measuring the effectiveness of your campaigns. You cannot afford to miss out on a social media presence in today’s business environment. The best thing is you can do it yourself at very little or no cost.
What other marketing tools do you use to reach your customers?
Credit: Servled
