For many businesses, budgets are tighter than ever before, leading them to something of a vicious cycle – they can’t afford to extend their marketing budget. Still, they’ll struggle to attract new customers if they don’t up their marketing game. In this article, we’ll share our tips for breaking the cycle and marketing your business on a budget.
1. Get Social
For many business owners, having a presence on social media means paid advertising – but there’s much more to these platforms than that.
Studies show that consumers love it when businesses reach out to them on a personal level on social media, and you can gain some great results by practising proper engagement. For example, be sure to respond to comments and questions and create a dialogue rather than using set answers. Trawl through the pages of the people who engage with yours and like or comment on their posts.
When you create a personal connection with your followers, they will automatically feel more loyal towards your brand – and will tell others about it.
2. Go old school
In 2022, many people think about marketing as being an almost exclusively digital thing – but digital isn’t always best.
Studies show that leaflet distribution is significantly more effective than digital methods and is a cost-effective way of reaching a large number of customers. This can be particularly successful if you run a location-based business such as a hair salon or restaurant, as leaflet advertising allows you to target your audience in a way that isn’t possible with digital marketing.
3. Email marketing
Another one which thoroughly modern Millies consider old-fashioned is email marketing, but we’ll let you into a secret – it still works.
As with leaflet advertising, email marketing allows you to send out messaging that the customer can actually keep hold of; rather than scrolling past on social media. As long as you take the time to properly personalise your email marketing distribution, this is an extremely effective and low-cost way of showcasing your business.
4. Claim your ad credits
While social media advertising isn’t the be-all and end-all of your marketing campaign, it can help to increase your profile – and the good news is that there is a way of boosting your profile without breaking the bank. In many cases, there are free ad credits lurking in your business Facebook account – which will help you to stretch your marketing budget just that little bit further.
To access these, go through the following steps:
- Go to your Payment settings.
- In the Payment methods section, click on ‘Add payment method’
- Choose your location and currency, then click ‘Save’
- In the ‘Add payment’ section, select Ad credit
- Enter your 16-digit alphanumeric ad credit, then click on ‘Claim’
5. Content marketing
Still considered to be one of the most effective ways of marketing your business, content marketing is all about offering quality content – i.e. stuff that people actually want to read – in order to highlight your business offering.
The great thing about content marketing is that it’s not just for your digital marketing; it can work equally well with leaflet marketing. For example, you may want to include an introduction to a compelling piece of content in your leaflets and then direct the consumer to your website to access the rest.
When putting together your content, make sure that you research your topics and only publish well-written work. If writing isn’t your thing, you can find some great copywriters at reasonable prices on platforms such as Fiver and People Per Hour.
6. Understanding your SEO
In a lot of cases, you can make your marketing budget work harder for you simply by paying close attention to SEO. SEO is designed to bag consumers who search the internet for products or services, and this is broken down into three parts:
- Navigational search queries – The consumer knows which company he or she wants and conducts a search for that particular brand.
- Informational search queries – The web user is simply looking to gain information on a particular subject. For example, he or she may plug ‘mobile phone’ into a search engine to find out how mobile phones work.
- Transactional search queries – The consumer intends to buy a certain type of product and wishes to browse the internet to see what’s available and compare prices.
Understanding the different kinds of searches is an important tool as it helps you to figure out how to best target your SEO within your marketing.
7. User-generated content
A sneaky way of marketing your products or services is to get your customers and followers to do it for you. Encourage your customers and followers to like and share your content and leave reviews by offering incentives such as entry into a prize draw or competition – and be sure to include testimonials on your website and social media pages.
User-generated content can be really effective both in marketing your businesses and adding credibility for long-term results.
How to elevate your business through leaflet distribution
At DOR-2-DOR, we’ve helped thousands of customers to supersize their marketing spending through the innovative design and distribution of leaflets.
We offer a number of different options, including:
- Solus distribution – With this method, yours will be the only leaflet we distribute – meaning that your potential customers are not distracted by messages from other businesses.
- Shared distribution – A more cost-effective type of distribution, your leaflets will be delivered along with those from other, non-competing companies. This is the most popular option with our customers and a really effective type of marketing.
- Hand to hand – With this type of distribution, our team will get up close and personal with your potential customers by physically handing out leaflets in busy shopping areas.
Our team can help you design your leaflet and give you pointers on the kind of wording to use to make your leafleting campaign work as hard as you do.
On the market – on a budget
In today’s world, every business sector is more competitive than ever before, and it can be tricky to make yourself heard above all the noise. The trick to marketing your business is twofold:
- Innovate – Just because a marketing method is tried and tested, it doesn’t mean that it’s right for your business. When putting together your marketing materials, don’t be afraid to try something new, including even trying something a little controversial, in order to grab the attention of your potential customers.
- Step into your customers’ shoes – Taking the time to think about your customers’ desires and pain points will give you a major head start when it comes to increasing your business and getting ahead of the competition.
If you’re ready to grab those customers through leaflet distribution, get in touch with our friendly and knowledgeable customer service team today.
