Small business owners are always looking for new ideas to attract new customers, retain existing customers, and promote their brands throughout their desired demographics. However, it’s not always easy finding ways to do all of these things at once without spending large amounts of money and without going off course as a business. Here are two small business marketing ideas that won’t break the budget while providing a reasonable return on investment: creating important content and following up with potential leads through handwritten notes.
Creating Content
One of the most effective small business marketing ideas is to create content that draws in web visitors and establishes your small business as an expert in your chosen field. In other words, create content that is relevant to your business goals.
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Online, creating relevant content means establishing your website and business as a place where valuable knowledge may be obtained. You don’t need to devote any financial resources to creating relevant content as long as you already have some sort of website in place, the only cost is your time.
The content you create, of course, will depend on your specific niche. For example, a small business that sells children’s clothing might create a page that deals with tips for removing stains from children’s uniforms and athletic clothing. From that page, parents who find the information useful and relevant to their children will be more likely to review the rest of the site, which in their eyes will be an authority on children’s clothing.
This established expertise will set the business up for direct sales through that parent and indirect sales when the parent forwards the link to the tips to other parents in his or her circle. In short, if you can establish yourself as an expert in a niche area, you will soon gather a following of potential shoppers, which can prove highly lucrative to your small business.
Handwritten thank you notes
Another unconventional small business marketing strategy is to focus on hand written follow up cards. This can actually be one of the most effective small business marketing ideas for attracting clients in the real world, as it has an element of personality that is missing from so many marketing approaches both online and offline.
Although it might seem counter intuitive, a good old fashioned follow up card written by hand to clients and business partners can go a long way. What you say doesn’t have to be poetic and tear jerking; you might say thank you, that you’re looking forward to a future relationship and partnership between your businesses, or that it was a pleasure to meet the person in question. Such cards only take a moment to write, but they are much more likely to generate responses from leads than meetings that did not involve follow up cards.
Think about it from your perspective as a potential client. How many times in the past year have you received handwritten cards from people or companies you met? If your answer is zero, then that shows you how ripe the field is for exploration. And the chances are that if you’ve received a couple, you can probably remember the surprise and positive feelings that accompanied receiving them. It’s a personal technique that can help your small business grow to new heights while establishing your brand as one that values personal communications.
I hope you will get benefit from applying these two simple small business marketing ideas. I would love to hear your ideas also so if you have unique ideas share them in the comments below!
