Marketing is absolutely essential when you run a small business, but you can run out of ideas quickly. You might be considering the same old ideas while wondering what you can do that will actually make a difference for your business. Here are five fun marketing ideas that are guaranteed to put your business on the map.
List your business online
One of the simplest ways to get your business out there is putting it in the free white pages. Putting your business’s contact information in an online directory is a great way to make sure everyone has the ability to reach your business anytime. 97 percent of customers use the internet to find businesses, so if customers can’t easily find your business through a search, you will steadily lose business. Listing your company’s contact information digitally will ensure your business can always be found.
Promotional swag
You might be tempted to switch to entirely digital marketing, but your best plan is to combine digital and physical marketing. Promotional pens and other products are still very effective in bringing in customers. Consumers are much more likely to remember your brand if they’re given a physical product because they are interacting with it daily. People also just love free products, so giving away promotional materials is a perfect way to help your customers feel like they’re appreciated.
Customer referral program
Customer referrals are successful because people trust their friends’ and colleagues’ recommendations. The idea of social enrichment shows that referred customers are more likely to stay with your company because of the bond they have with the people who referred them. This bond creates a loyalty to your company, as well, so creating a customer referral program will help increase customer retention. Offering your current customers a small incentive for referring others will ultimately bring your business more customers and more profits.
Hold contests & giveaways
While this might initially seem counterintuitive, holding contests and giveaways are great strategies for promoting your business. Contests are relatively affordable for you, and if you can collect important data when customers sign up for the contests, the benefits will be huge. You can require participants to provide their email addresses and then you can add them to your email newsletter. This will increase the chances that participants will become regular customers. You can also ask participants to share their entry on social media platforms. This will help spread the word about your business, which is the goal of all this marketing in the first place.
Create a social media presence
Most likely, you’ve already created a few social media profiles for your business, but it’s important that you make a plan for engaging with these profiles. You want to make sure you’re actively posting and interacting with consumers on these platforms, as it will help spread the word about your business. Make sure you’re sharing engaging content that is target towards your ideal customer. You should post consistently and everything you post should be specifically about your business. Save your personal life for your own social media! Businesses’ social media need to clearly represent who they are and what they are promoting. If you’re unfamiliar with the best social media platforms to use, ask an employee to run your company’s social media or hire an expert. This type of marketing is becoming more and more important for small businesses, so you don’t want to neglect it.
Marketing can be fun and easy if you know what to do. Try any (or all!) of these five ideas and your business will be booming in no time.
