Time to get the word out!
Your small business is up and running! You’re delivering your service or product, and now you need more customers. Time to get the word out!
You need publicity, you need advertising — but that’s expensive right? Let’s not even get started on the cost of TV ads, or even traditional print ads — one reason it’s great to be an entrepreneur today is there are so many other ways to reach customers.
Of course, even web advertising can get quite expensive. Hopefully you’re already starting to collect an opt-in list of customers’ e-mail addresses so you can send them new offers, info on products or services, or useful tips on how to use your products.
But there’s so much more you can do, at little to no cost. Let’s look at ways you can use the internet to get the word out on the cheap, and sometimes even free!
Here are ten things to try:
- Blog. It does take time, but it’s free — and it drives traffic to your site. (If you write about things your customers are searching for.) Keep your time investment small: treat your blog like a simple journal, writing about your real thoughts — what you hope to offer customers this year, a problem you solved for a customer this week, a news item you thought would be interesting to your customers. Then don’t forget to post your blogs to social media. (You can host a blog on your website using free software like this.
- Become a Published Writer. You know what your customers need, and what they’re interested in. So write an article about it! Or three, or ten. Submit your articles to be posted on sites like ArticlesFactory.com, TheFreeLibrary.com and EzineArticles.com. Include links to your website (in relevant places only, or include it in your author’s description). Now people interested in these topics can find you!
- Get more traffic from search engines. Figure out what your customers are searching for — what keywords do they search to find your business? Now insert relevant keywords into HTML < META > tags on your website. Whenever these keywords make sense in articles and product descriptions, use them. These tactics can help push your site to the top of search results.
- Use your web address everywhere. This may only pay small dividends (especially at first) but it’s free and really a no-brainer. Even customers you already have should know your web address, because the more people visit your website, the more other people will see your website. Your web address should be listed everywhere you touch the public — in your email signature, social media posts, business cards, flyers, your phone book listing, even on your front door.
- Join online communities. What’s the issue or topic your company aims to serve or solve? Find a few online forums — stick to the ones that look very active — and join them. Check in once a day to chat for 10 minutes. But never spam about your product, just be there to converse and (if you’re lucky) offer expertise. You can put your company name and web address in your signature.
- Offer coupons on social media. Drive customers back to your website to get their coupon code. If you’re planning to run a sale anyway, why not offer a special coupon to fans and customers on Facebook? The benefit is they can share that coupon with their friends, so many more people will see it. You can even incentivize fans to share with their friends, using tools like Woobox [LINK].
- Ask your fans, friends and employees to help. It may sound simple, but many businesses just don’t do it. When you post an important story or offer to Facebook or Twitter, show it to your employees and let them know they can freely share it. Ask your best customers to share your stories they think friends will like (this is a good reason to keep that customer email list updated), or even incentivize them to share posts they love by offering a coupon or discount on a future purchase.
- Pay-per-click on Google AdWords. AdWords and other pay-per-click options can be very inexpensive, especially as you start testing what works — try starting with just $10 or $20 a day. AdWords can bring tons of traffic especially if you’re thoughtful and careful to target your ads at the right interest groups for your product. Don’t scrimp on your investment in time — make sure you first research what your customers are buying and what their pain points are today, then write a list of keywords specific to those needs. Add the most searched terms for your industry. Better-focused keywords will boost your click-through rate a lot, and that leads to more conversions.
- Try Facebook Ads. Again, $10 a day can actually make an impact here. Facebook ads can be great at finding consumers who’ll want your product — especially if you use Facebook’s targeting abilities thoughtfully. In fact the biggest benefit of paying instead of just posting to Facebook is that you can reach people who think you’re relevant to their lives, but haven’t stumbled onto your page organically. Targeted new followers are more likely to convert to customers and become fans and advocates of your products than random followers are. Targeting is important here because it narrows who’ll see your ad to people more likely to convert — you don’t want to waste budget on clicks by people who are just browsing for general information.
- Try StumbleUpon Paid Discovery. StumbleUpon is actually a great traffic driver, because its avid users are searchers. You can pay as low as 5 cents a click, so again, just $20 a day could net you 400 new potential customers. If your promotions are entertaining enough or serve a powerful customer need, lots of Stumblers might “Like” your post and you could keep getting organic clicks for a long time after your paid ads end.
Some of these tactics may work well for you, while others may not. And they do take some effort and some investment in time. The key thing to realize is that they all cost little enough money (or none) that you can easily test them to see what works, if you think they might fit your objectives.
Have you found other ways to reach customers for cheap or free? Let me know in the comments!
—
Who is John Paulsen? A former small-business leader myself, I feel your pain (and joy) and hope you’ll enjoy the blog. I launched and ran a well-regarded production company in San Francisco with a team of 9 brilliant, hard working people. I learned to manage a wide array of tasks a small business must handle — business strategy, facilities design, HR, payroll, taxes, marketing, all the way down to choosing telecom equipment and spec’ing a server system to help my team collaborate in real-time on dense media projects from multiple production rooms. I’ve partnered with and learned from dozens of small business owners.
Leave A Comment