Inexpensive Digital Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

Every small business owner is eager to move up to the big leagues and take their enterprise to the next level. And this is a trait that successful small business owners share: the ability to see the big picture and envision their future success. 

But elevating your brand takes time and practice. Working your way up to the top entails building an established presence within your local target audience. This way, you can make a splash in the vast ocean of your industry competitors.

This involves going through the process of getting to know your customers, catering to their needs, and leaving your mark online. More and more people are spending time on the internet, and the trend isn’t slowing down. If you want to provide a seamless online browsing experience for your customers, you’ll need to set up an e-commerce site to keep customers on your page. 

It can be a lot to take in, especially if you’re just starting to market your business. But cost-effective digital marketing strategies are available to make your brand stand out from the competition. We’ve gathered a list of some of the most useful marketing ideas below. 

Use Trust Signals

Every brand needs to look trustworthy to boost sales and encourage customers to come back for more. But for small businesses, earning and maintaining brand trust is a lot harder because you’re up against bigger names in the industry.

Regardless of how long you’ve been in the industry, there’s still a way for you to communicate how credible your brand is by using trust signals. These visual elements can come in the form of testimonials, product reviews, association logos, guarantees, or security emblems. They are important to your site because they can help inspire confidence in the mind of your consumers. 

Testimonials and reviews can, for instance, help make people feel more secure while browsing or entice them to follow through with a purchase. Select meaningful trust factors and insert them strategically into your site to foster deeper trust for your brand. 

Publish High-Value Blogs

One of the most effective ways to build brand awareness is by publishing blogs. And most people agree: 82% of businesses consider blogging an essential component of their digital marketing strategy. 

Producing fresh, high-quality content provides search engines with material to index. In turn, this can improve your online visibility, increase organic traffic, and boost brand awareness. 

Informational and engaging content can help you hit touch points on your customers’ online journey. It also positions your business to be top-of-the-mind when they think of their most liked resources. Strengthen customer relationships and demonstrate your knowledge by crafting content that helps people solve problems. Publish well-written, high-value blogs that people would love to scan and share.

Optimize Content with Keywords

More than 3.77 billion people use the internet every day. And apart from your business, there are millions of other brands vying for their attention. If you truly want to hook your audience,  you can’t simply publish generic content about your brand. 

You’ll need to optimize your content with keywords to rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs).

SEO keywords help attract organic traffic to your site. Conduct thorough keyword research to find relevant terms you can insert in your copy. Make sure the keywords you use are relevant to your website and niche. If you spam your content with unrelated keywords just to get traffic, you could incur a penalty and cause your rankings to go down. 

Publish Guest Posts

Guest posting is a cost-effective way to introduce your small business to a larger audience. It involves pitching original content to other websites to forge meaningful relationships, gain better exposure, and create an effective link-building campaign. 

Guest blogs are easy to make, but the only way you can maximize their impact is if they fall within webmaster rules and guidelines. 

Aim to get published on authoritative sites with a lot of followers. Even though the copy won’t be appearing on your main website, keep in mind that the content still represents your brand. So maintain the tone and craft your relatable stories that will resonate with your target audience. Well-written guest posts can help you gain organic traffic and boost brand awareness. 

Create Multimedia Content

Crafting text-based content is a must for your branding efforts. The urgency and intimacy of text-based marketing make it so attractive and compelling to customers. 

But make sure you don’t fall short of appealing to your target audience through other meaningful ways. After all, in today’s tech-laden world, consumers are surrounded by multimedia content. And data shows that 90% of internet users today prefer consuming information through videos. 

If this data teaches us anything, it’s that you have to vary your content through multimedia marketing. By limiting yourself to traditional, text-heavy blog posts, you’re missing out on educating and inspiring your target audience. Make videos, infographics, podcasts, and other forms of informational content to keep your audience hooked. 

Conduct Webinars

Webinars are a form of broadcast content that allows you to showcase your industry expertise. Conducting a webinar can change the way people think, and all you need to make that happen is a stable internet connection and a video camera. On top of that, you get to establish your credibility as a thought leader in your field. 

Aside from promoting brand awareness, webinars are also a great way for you to gather info about your target audience. Having participants answer a questionnaire before tuning in to the broadcast or enabling a live comments section, can, for instance, provide valuable insights about the people you are marketing to. That way, you’ll know how to make your future webinars more engaging. 

And once you’ve gotten the hang of conducting webinars, you can turn them into an added source of revenue. 

Interact with Netizens on Different Platforms

Consumers now have more options for products and services than ever before. People can easily find whatever they’re looking for right at their fingertips. But the important thing you have to consider is that customers want to feel like their needs are heard. 

And this is why they’re more willing to make a purchase when they’re transacting with a human being. Data shows that 48% of consumers feel more encouraged to buy when a brand is responsive on social media.  

Interact with customers on different platforms and tell them how much you value their support for your brand. You can do this is by sharing knowledge on online forums, replying to customer reviews, answering questions about your products, and staying active on social media. 

And when you come across negative feedback, don’t get hostile. Instead, treat criticism as a learning opportunity. Turn things around and demonstrate how reliable your customer service really is. Most importantly, take note of the comments and feedback and tweak your marketing strategy to improve further. 

Customize Your Email Signatures

An email signature is a digital business card that’s included in all of the mail you send out. Surprisingly, it’s also one of the most understated marketing tools. A signature may not seem like much, but it can play a crucial role in showcasing your professionalism. And designing one goes beyond simply slapping on your business name and contact details.

Design an email signature that aligns with your brand and has a personal touch. You can add a photo of the signatory or customize the banner to align with upcoming festivities like Easter or Christmas. You can even take it up a notch and customize your banner to reflect customer birthdays or the date when they first became your patron. 

To enhance brand recall, include links to your social media pages. Don’t forget to compose a compelling CTA to entice the reader to begin or complete the buyer’s journey. 

Work with Influencers

Influencers hold a powerful influence over the marketing scene. Data shows that consumers are 71% more likely to buy a product endorsed by a social media influencer. On that note, macro and micro-influencers are a cost-effective way to help expand your reach and engagement. 

Make your campaign more relevant by marketing to the right audience. When you partner with an influencer for your marketing campaign, consider their demographics to ensure you’re reaching the right people. 

It also helps to go through your current customer list first. Who knows, you might already have a micro influencer in your community who is already a fan of your product. Maximize your online influence and offer them special packages in exchange for product reviews, mentions, and other types of promotional posts. 

Incentivize Referrals 

Referrals can go a long way in increasing customer acquisition and retention. Take Dropbox, for example. In 2007, Dropbox was introduced as an innovative cloud storage and file synchronization solution. In just a couple of years, the hosting service amassed over 500 million active users. 

The company’s secret to success? They took advantage of referral programs which rewarded customers for spreading the word about their brand. 

Dropbox offered 500MB to 1GB worth of free space to anyone who successfully recruited a new subscriber to the cloud. It even gamified the referral process to appeal to customers and it eventually turned into a household name. Make your small business just as successful by designing a formal referral program that incentivizes users when they patronize your brand. 

Grow Your Small Business Through Digital Marketing 

Marketing your small business doesn’t have to be expensive—all you have to do is be strategic about what you spend on. Even low-cost methods can go a long way in improving your online presence. 

Let Growth Rocket help you craft a strategy to bring your business to greater heights. Start your success journey and get in touch with us today.