Tight Marketing Budget? Inexpensive Marketing Tips for Retail, Restaurants, and Entertainment Businesses

It seems that businesses are cutting back as much as they can. Unfortunately, this often means that marketing and advertising budgets take a back seat. This is one of the worst things to do! Remaining consistent with your advertising while others are cutting back and disappearing results in gaining market share and more customers!

However, we all realize that sometimes budget cuts are inevitable. Here are some marketing tricks and hints that will help your business boost marketing effectiveness, even when money is tight.

• Begin Employing a Social Media Strategy: If you haven’t heard about the massive power and impact social media marketing holds for your business, you may need to check your pulse! Social media presents the perfect avenue for customer conversation and interaction! Get your customers and potential customers involved, talk to them, and ask for feedback. There are SO many ways social media can be used to benefit your business. Just a few of them include:

• Build relationships with loyal customers
• Communicate, communicate, communicate!
• Drive traffic to your blog and website
• Market your brand and your business
• Share your expertise
• Answer questions/ ask questions
• Stay current with the latest industry trends
• Search engine optimization
• Avenue for promotions

Confused about getting started? These entries may also be helpful for you to check out:

A Social Media Strategy Is a Must

Twitter for Business

• Get Creative – Use Guerrilla Marketing Techniques: Guerrilla marketing encompasses a vast category of methods, but at the core I like to explain it as “marketing with an added value.” This may be entertainment, information, or just making someone feel good! For example, guerrilla marketing could be sending out a quarterly or monthly newsletter. The newsletter must contain valuable information (i.e. preview of new products, tips and advice). Another example could be using unusual, attention-getting media, like sidewalk displays. Yet another example would be to record your customer’s birthdays, anniversaries, and other occasions and send them a special note from your business. The possibilities are endless! Guerrilla marketing requires more creativity, but works wonderfully for those on a tight marketing budget.

• In-Store Marketing: A sometimes ignored method, in-store marketing is extremely important in turning the people coming through your door into loyal, long-term and repeat customers. There are a variety of inexpensive methods that can take your business to new levels in the mind’s of your customers.

• Offer your customers complimentary coffee
• Collect names for a drawing or contest
• Offer a gift with purchase
• Create a loyalty program

These are just some of the ways you can inexpensively market in your store and turn customers into fans!

Have other “Marketing on a Tight Budget” Tips? I would love to hear them! Please share below.