If you’re not going to be spending money you need to be spending your time and knowledge to see any outcomes. SME Blueprint demonstrates very practical strategies to market your business without money.
Firstly, you must know what you’re selling, rather than just selling a product or a service you are selling a solution to someone’s problem. So think about the problems that you solve for your customer. If you can show you know how to fix these problems which meets their expectations, then you can simply sell that solution yourself or you can recommend the best alternative from another business that you have a relationship with. But either way you’re building a reputation that will travel by word of mouth or the Internet.
Action: Create a list of problems you can solve and these can be the origin to start your marketing.
In todays connected world, social media is a good marketing tool. The fast development of social media from a sales channel to one of brand awareness, lead generation and loyalty has been difficult for some businesses to catch onto because they are worried that they are unwelcome and they don’t want to bombard everyone with their brand. Social media people are looking for conversation or information, not an advertisement to ‘buy this’. Social media is the place to walk the talk of your business, do this enough and people who are interested in your solutions will be attracted to you.
Action: Pick one of the solutions your business provides and start posting information about it to your customers on a regular basis.
Word of mouth has proved to be a great method to find customers or for them to find you. Everyone you know and all of your past customers are regular brand ambassadors. But the best brand ambassador you can ever have is you. No one knows more about it than you. Make sure that every contact you have with a potential customer adds value to them, this means giving them what they want which generates leads and can be turned into sales. Once you’ve added value encourage them to tell everyone they feel may be interested. They can do this by your website, email, social media, phone or address. And if it’s in person, give them a business card.
Action: Ensure that all of the contents on your paperwork and communications contain updated contact details and a simple request to spread the word.
Business referrals are often not initially a quick generator of customers. In order to refer people to other businesses you must first know the other business, this may be from a personal contact you’ve had with them or from word of mouth. The referrals that are most obvious are those that do not overlap your market but instead compliment it. The challenging referrals are those that you think are competition. The key as always is to provide value to customers by referring to businesses that you believe will help resolve their problem to their expectation.
Action: Make friends with businesses that compliment your business and know your competition.
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