Marketing your business on a shoestring
August 1, 2007
Now that you have your business started it’s time to start marketing yourself.
Word of mouth is a great free way of marketing yourself but if you want to grow your business, you are going to have to reach more people.
A great introductory marketing tool is putting up flyers. You can often save money by printing copies of your flyer at your local library or at business centers like The UPS store or Kinko’s rather than printing them out all on your printer at home.
Now get out there and put up your flyers starting with your own neighborhood. A lot of grocery stores and other businesses often have community bulletin boards where you can put up flyers as well.
Another great and inexpensive marketing tool is putting a little ad in the classifieds section of your little local newspaper. Advertising in the classifieds section usually doesn’t cost much and many people prefer to use an independent, mom and pop type service business right in their own neighborhood.
So don’t be afraid to look like a small business and advertise using your first name. Between word of mouth, flyers, and a classified ad, you may find you have enough work to keep you busy.
Of course the very best marketing tool you have is happy, satisfied customers who are willing to act as references and give you referrals.Â
Well that’s all for now, be sure to go do something good for yourself!
Last 5 posts by Elaine Gordon Evans
- Heading For Summer, Sun And Fun In Your Service Business - June 1st, 2008
- Launching your business with a conscience - May 7th, 2008
- Increasing Fair Marketshare When Times Are Tough - April 1st, 2008
- Running A Bussiness When Life Is Falling Apart - February 12th, 2008
- Service with a Smile - October 13th, 2007
Great post Elaine. I think it’s interesting because a lot of people are afraid to look like a small business, where in actuality for some businesses that’s a big plus.
A lot of people are tired of the big faceless corporations and appreciate a personal touch.
I never realized how vital happy satisfied customers were going to be to building my VA business. Sure I knew that happy customers was a requirement but in the beginning I didn’t understand how a client being satisfied was going to lead to word of mouth marketing! My VA Business has been built around word of mouth marketing!
I’m sure this approach works, but I’m wondering if it would work for all types of businesses, or it would only be appropriate for certain businessess. My husband started a business last year, we did the local marketing thing, and we never got the business off the ground.
This is great advice - I also recommend doing “drop cards” - like a business card but more of a “teaser” with the only contact info being your website - or a product download link. Leave these in phone booths, on tables in restaurants, or even in library books. Just don’t make a nuisance of yourself by littering them all over the place.
Darlene
http://www.mom-defrazzler.com
Cudos to you Tishia! You’ve spelled out the very cheapest way of marketing your business, gaining new customers through word of mouth by DOING GOOD WORK!
Elaine
Mara,
This approach does work for most businesses. There are many variables as to why your business didn’t get off the ground and it may or may not have had to do with how it was marketed. Some of the kinds of questions you need to ask yourself in order to analyze what happened are: Were our prices too high? Did we stay in it long enough to get going or did we quit too soon? Was the problem the way we marketed the business? Etc. etc.
You can use your experience as an opportunity for learning so you’ll be better prepared to launch your next business. The prerequisite to success is oftentimes failure along with the tenacity and determination to start over again.
Elaine
3 HOT tips to improve your ads/flyers and letters for Small Business Growth
One of the areas that you can dramatically improve the number of leads to your small business is through effective advertising.