Looking for Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business?
The biggest wish of any entrepreneur is to see their business grow. After all, why else would you invest your time, talent, resources, and effort into something if you don’t want to see it succeed? Getting your fledgling company off the ground isn’t an easy task, and it can take a lot of hard work and dedication to grow your business or startup.
There are many paths to success, and some of them are easier or more evident than others. In a previous post, we talked about ‘How to Create a Business Website for Big Impact’ through creating engaging content and interacting with your market using social media. Managing an online presence is one way to ensure that you’re reaching the customers you want to reach, but it isn’t the only avenue available to you.
Many entrepreneurs are understandably hesitant about relying on offline marketing techniques in order to push their growth further. After all, offline marketing can be labor-intensive and put a drain on resources that many starting businesses may not have. However, integrating your marketing strategy to include both offline and online methods might actually help you generate a bigger impact and benefit your business in the long run.
Here are a few low-cost ideas you can use to supplement your online marketing work in the offline world.
Direct Mail
Many people don’t think too deeply about direct mail, but it’s a familiar part of daily life. You’ve probably had the same experience of opening up mail to find coupons and other promotional materials from businesses. Direct mail isn’t always first on the list when it comes to small business marketing strategies, but they can actually be extremely useful, especially if you want to see returns.
Triadex Services’ post on direct mail suggests this marketing technique actually has some of the highest conversion rates, with 65% of all consumers making a purchase. While direct mail will require you to invest in materials, postage, and a targeted mailing list, it’s also one of the best methods to create actual ROI and engagement with your website and business. Companies big and small get great returns from direct mail marketing, so it might be a good idea to give it a try.
Media Giveaways
Giving out freebies may seem like it’s counterintuitive — after all, you’re literally giving out your product or service for free — but many small business owners often underestimate the impact these giveaways can have on potential customers. Ideas 4 Smallbiz suggests that giving away freebies can actually create a buzz and positive brand association, something that can be hard to do in a saturated online sphere.
You can use giveaways to strengthen recall of your brand, and include links to your social media and website in your free items. While it can be costly to do this with a large number of people, giveaways are more likely to motivate customers to engage with your brand and create lasting relationships with your company.
Canvassing
Canvassing can be a little daunting for beginner entrepreneurs, but it’s an integral part of marketing. The point of canvassing is not to close a sale necessarily, but to promote your brand, especially among people who you might not be able to reach through online channels.
Young Upstarts has a list of different tips you can use to make your canvassing efforts more effective, including making your pitch compelling and creative. This is where your soft skills as a business owner come in — you’ll need to make sure that your canvassing “script” is engaging and personable, and aim to build deeper relationships with your potential customers. Make sure to make full use of your charisma, and redirect your target market to online platforms where they can learn more about your brand.
Networking
Finally, one of the best, low-cost offline marketing methods a small business owner can use is networking. Networking can be labor-intensive, and starting out can get a little shaky, but it’s a technique that you can use continuously over the lifespan of your business, with great returns in the long-term. It can help you build confidence, forge connections with potential customers as well as partner businesses, and identify benchmarks and best practices in the industry.
But while networking has a slew of different advantages, it’s also something that many small business owners might struggle with. Luckily, All Business has put together seven easy tips to help small business owners get started with networking, including building a strategy and writing out an elevator pitch that can help attract new customers to your business. Networking is an important skill that all entrepreneurs need to invest in, and can pull in huge returns over the years when done correctly.
Want more ways to market your business? Check out my top secrets here.
