What is shoestring marketing? It's marketing with spending little to no money. Small business owners need to embrace shoestring marketing in order to generate new customers and clients. Here are some ways small business owners can take charge of their marketing without breaking the bank:
Word-of-Mouth
Once the business is up and running, tell every family, friend and colleague that you know. Explain what the business does or offers and possibly offer an incentive. It can be a discount on the product or service or even cold, hard cash. For example, a one person consulting firm could offer $100 for every client referral that generates at least $500+ in business. Obviously the referral reward should be relative to amount of business generated. Another example is a pizzeria. For every five customers referred, the referral source would receive a free pizza.
Public Relations (PR)
Many people mistakenly believe that public relations and advertising are one in the same. Not true. PR is essentially unpaid advertising. Whereas marketing is paid for, PR takes time to see results. PR tends to be newsworthy and not promotional. Small businesses can generate PR in a variety of ways, such as through press releases, a media event, pitching local media or even highlighting a recent survey or case study. PR is critical to any business because it provides credibility. An unbiased, third party (the media) is touting the business' service or product. Small business owners can't buy that kind of marketing.
Social Media
No shoestring marketing plan is complete without including social media. Select a few social media sites, such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and focus your efforts. These sites are a great way to build relationships with customers, highlight products and services, gather feedback and leverage viral marketing. It's a great venue to both market and provide value to customers. Best of all, it doesn't cost any money to do it!
Email Newsletter
A great marketing tool and a way to keep in touch with customers is through a regular email newsletter. No stamps or envelopes are necessary -- so the cost is essentially free! Determine the frequency, content and put together a list. To alleviate any spam issues (e-mail has become quite regulated) and to ensure the newsletter stays out of the junk mail folder, it's best to use a service such as Constant Contact or Vertical Response. Their costs are minimal. If that's no possible, start off using an established email and gradually move to a service once the list grows to 50+ contacts.
The most important part of any shoestring marketing is to have a plan. It doesn't need to be anything elaborate, but it should include all the components with a calendar outlining what to do and when. Here's to growing small businesses with shoestring marketing!
Allison Jackson - Allison Jackson is a mom of two, a freelance writer and communications professional. With a keen interest in marketing, social media and ...
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