The 5 Best Ways to Market Your Small Business On A Shoestring Budget

Do email marketing, post on social, get a website, etc. The Internet is overloaded with generalized advice that doesn’t pan out most of the time. Here are five effective ways to promote your small business.

Time Square in New York is visited by 400,000 people every day, generating millions of impressions for each advertising billboard. As per the latest data, there are around 238 billboards in the famous square and it costs well over $5K to even $50K to rent out one of the billboards for a day.

Now imagine a square that gets 2.5 billion visitors per day, not only generating tens of millions of impressions, but also sales, calls, and engagements.

This is a place where you kickstart your advertising campaign for less than $2 per day and generate thousands of impressions. But there’s a catch: over 500 million other businesses are also competing in this space, posting their content every day to show up on the feed and get your customers.

As social media becomes more and more crowded, only “being on social media” and posting just “some content” is not enough. A proactive approach is necessary if you want to break through the noise and show up on the feed.

But how? What are the practical cost-efficient ways to market your business on social media?

1. Allure New Customers With a Referral Program

Although getting your first customers is quite rewarding and crucial to your business, a growing customer base and consistent sales set apart a “failed” and a “successful” business.

Setting up a customer referral program is one of the best ways to increase customers loyalty. Such programs with alluring incentives can provide the necessary nudge/motivation for people to refer their friends and family to purchase your products or use your services. But, how exactly does that work?

Imagine you sell woolen sweatshirts on your Instagram. You can send a message (manually or using email automation tools like MailChimp) to each new customer, encouraging them to refer a friend or mention your business on their social media for a free pair of socks or a huge discount on their next purchase. Keep in mind that the incentives here play a major role in having a successful referral program.

2. Rack up Likes Using Trendy Reels

If you are running a business on social media, you probably heard about TikTok and Instagram reels, short videos often with hip-hop music and colorful text. These are the holy grails in social media nowadays.

It’s good to post pictures of your products and write about your services on your Instagram page, but if you’re not using reels, you’re probably missing out on a huge opportunity on Instagram.

Forget about fancy ads you see on television. Recording reels don’t require a studio, a professional camera, and writing long scripts, you just need to show up. Go in front of the camera, and talk about your business: why you started it and what products/services you provide. However, don’t tell the whole story in one reel. The best way is to communicate one thing at a time in every reel.

Authenticity and diversity are key here. Try to ask your most loyal customers to create a selfie video of themselves, explaining why they love your products/services.

Make it a habit every day to check out the reels section on Instagram to find new creative ways to produce content and see what style of content is popular at the moment. Hop on trends early by embedding famous music and text into your reels. Consistently publishing reels will help you to get more visitors to your social media page and turn them into customers.

3. Partner up With Relevant Accounts

Following potential customers on social media is a surefire way to grow your following on social media. However, it can be time-consuming and not as effective as you think. But is there any better way?

Instead of reaching out to people one by one, you can capture the attention of an entire community by building partnerships with other business/professional accounts.

So, imagine you’re running a printing business. Your customers are small companies and individuals who want to print their logo or an illustration on their t-shirts, mugs, or electronic devices. Thus, you always need new and creative illustrations and designs to provide better support to your clients.

On the other side, there’s a huge community of artists on Instagram who would like to print their designs on a t-shirt or mug and sell them to their fans.

As you can see, this is a great partnership opportunity where both sides can benefit. On the social media level, it means you can follow and promote each other.

4. Boost Sales With Limited-Time Offers

Have you ever heard of FOMO? It’s the “Fear Of Missing Out”, the very first rule of every market. When something is short in supply, demand will increase. Look at what happens every year during days like Valentine’s Day, Black Friday, and other special events. People storm the stores and try to get their hands on more once-a-year deals.

So if you’re looking to create buzz around your small business, it’s time to think about how you can create your own “special day”. It can be a public holiday or the first day of summer, where you run a campaign promoting a limited-time offer. This “offer” could, for instance, be a huge discount on a product or even a gift alongside each purchase.

5. Grow Exponentially by Running Facebook Ads Using LaunchPad Marketing

A couple of years ago, I was thinking of the best ways to market my very own small business. So I googled, “the best ways to promote my business online”. The results were rather disappointing. “Run ads on Facebook”, they said, but there was no guide on how I can run successful campaigns that get results.

So, I got in touch with some of the business owners in my city and something repeatedly came up during the discussions, “Most of my sales come from Facebook ads, it’s the best way to grow your business IF it is done right.” They told me they hired freelance marketers and designers to help them set up and manage their campaigns. But… I didn’t have the budget.

That’s one of the reasons I started LaunchPad Marketing.

LaunchPad Marketing: run Facebook ads that actually work without breaking the bank!

LaunchPad Marketing is a platform that lets you run successful & cost-efficient Facebook ad campaigns automatically, so you can stop wasteful spending on marketing and save time. From setting up advanced targeting options to designing creative assets and optimizing your ads, LaunchPad Marketing will take care of everything else.

Without LaunchPad Marketing you either spend a lot of money on hiring or a huge amount of time on figuring out the Facebook advertising platform. Having LaunchPad Marketing is like hiring an experienced Facebook ad expert full-time, but for a tiny fraction of the cost. It allows you to focus on what matters most to you and take care of social media advertising. With LaunchPad Marketing, you can grow your business on autopilot.

Get an early bird offer and be among the first to try out LaunchPad Marketing by filling out this form.