Business promotion is an on-going activity, crucial for your company’s success. It is all about getting the word out and having more and more people know about the very existence of your business as well as what kind of products and services you offer, and how they can benefit by using them. You need to plan your promotion and perform it consciously. The easiest way would be to hire a PR agency to do it for you, but there are numerous low-cost promotion possibilities that you can do yourself and save some money. Promotion doesn’t need to be expensive. Here’s what you can do:
Promote Whenever You Communicate
This is where your name, business logo, and slogan play the most crucial role. When you make a personal contact with someone, always have your business cards with you. Also, when providing or sending any type of document, make sure that it has a letterhead with your company information. The emails you send should always include your signature containing a promotional tagline and all your business information, as well as a section with links towards your social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn). Your documents and emails are your promotional tools.
Social Media
Social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are almost mandatory tools for today’s business promotion. You should create a social media marketing strategy, make post updates on a daily basis, and engage in communication with your audience. All this can be time-consuming, so automating your social media activity is highly recommended, or you can outsource for some social media managing services. Also, video content is very much valued today, so consider recording video promotions and posting them online.
Publish High-Quality Written Content
For many years, this has been an excellent way of online promotion. Writing quality articles that are related to your business niche can build positive word-of-mouth and provide free advertising. Ideally, your articles should appear in publications that your target audience will be reading. Add a short bio note about your business to go with the written content and send it out. The best outputs are blogs or websites (you can start your own or publish them as guest posts), magazines, and newspapers.
Cross-Promotion
Also known as “buddy marketing”, cross-promotion involves joining forces with other businesses and using joined resources for promoting all of your businesses. When sending brochures, you could put each others’ business cards along, thus extending your reach to a completely new pool of potential customers. If your businesses are complementary (for example, a pet grooming business and a pet store), you can use shared advertising and point customers towards one another.
Promotional Gifts
All of us got a promotional gift or material at some point in our lives, thus are familiar with this kind of promotion because it really works. You can hand out things like pens, mugs, T-shirts, USB sticks, ball caps, colorful non woven bags and bags – with your brand name and logo printed on each one of them. People keep them for a longer period of time, they remember the name, and basically advertise your brand to other people by using the gifts. You can also use them as customer rewards. People love receiving free things and will remember it as a sign of your appreciation for their patronage.
Give a Presentation or a Seminar
Sharing the knowledge of your expertise will certainly raise interest in a lot of people. So why not promote your business at the same time? For example, a retailer that sells domestic wines may offer a DIY course on how to build a wooden bar. Give presentations on related topic if there is no direct tie-in to your services or products.
These are just some of the ways you can promote your business without spending a fortune. With a little time, patience, and experimentation you will find out which ideas for promotion work best for your business.
