One of the many challenges facing small or start-up businesses is letting people know that you exist. As finding new customers is one of the top concerns for small business owners, thinking about and planning a marketing strategy should be at the top of their minds.

However without in-depth knowledge on how to begin successful marketing techniques – with also the concern that it could be potentially quite costly – many business owners may chose complete inaction. With new marketing techniques and technologies rapidly evolving this could be a very big mistake.

To help you with your marketing efforts, here is a list of 6 simple marketing ideas for your business to do and inexpensive methods of increasing your awareness:

Sign up to business directories – and keep them up to date!

Signing up to as many business directories as possible will help the presence of your business grow by being found on well-known directories on the internet. Make sure to add as much detail as possible to each listing including services, photos, contact information, website and social media profiles to further help potential new customers find out more about you.

It is also important to ensure that all of your listings are kept up to date. Anyone that finds or reviews your business via a directory will not be able to take the next step by contacting you directly if your information is incorrect or out of date. Apparently up to half of small business listings are out of date, or have never been updated – don’t be part of this group!

For a list of good business directories, and further information, please click here: Top 15 Free UK Business Directories

Build up an adequate presence across social media

A large amount of consumer time is spent on social media communicating directly with other people and businesses. Engaging directly with existing and potential customers can help to build up loyalty as well as exposure. Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus are all very strong sites to reach out to a wide range of people with your products, services and promotions while also allowing you to directly communicate with users about any questions or complaints.

Additionally, just having a Facebook page or twitter account is not enough. In today’s fast-paced world, you will be expected to keep your social media accounts up to date. Set yourself a schedule for when and how often you want to add new content to your profile, and be sure to respond to any direct questions as promptly as possible!

If you are unsure about social media, we have several articles with more information about social media marketing – please click here: Social Media Marketing

Send out regular email marketing campaigns

An excellent way of promoting new products, services or offers to existing customers is through email marketing. Although not necessarily the easiest method or marketing, it can be a very effective one as you can target specific audiences with information that they are likely to want to read, or products that they want to buy. We recommend using a free to use, feature-rich email marketing service such as Mailchimp.

Consideration does need to be taken with regard to how your email campaigns are composed. They need to be interesting and encourage readers with good call to action. You don’t send out ‘spam’ – sending out too many emails with low quality content – otherwise you will see low open rates and a high amount of unsubscribes.

If you are looking to increase the amount of emails in your mailing list, there are several ways to encourage people to sign up including incentives and setting expectations from your newsletters. See information here: Email Marketing Signup System

Create a giveaway

Hosting a giveaway can generate a lot of buzz for your business. Offering some of your products or services as part of a giveaway can attract a lot of people to you and allow them to try out your products or services. Not only will it help get your name more widely known, if people like the product or service they receive there is a very good chance they’ll tell their friends and also come back for more – becoming a paying customer.

Be helpful to others

You are an expert in the industry of your own products and services, whereas the vast majority are not. Go out of your way to give people the time needed to help them with any questions, problems or concerns, whether about your company specifically or the wider industry – including pointing them towards a competitor if it’s something you are unable to do.

This will build up a very strong identity for your brand as being honest and trustworthy – one of the major factors that influence a potential customer’s decision to purchase from a small business

Attend networking events

To promote yourself in your local area, you can visit as many different local events as possible and provide information and advice about your business. You could even give speeches about your area of expertise.

Marketing in this way will allow you to put a face to your business by directly interacting with people. Additionally, many people like the notion of buying products or services as locally as possible. By getting as much exposure as possible this way, potential customers in your area will think of you first when considering a purchase for a product or service in your industry.

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