Low Cost Tips for New Business Owners
Getting the buzz out about your growing business is the first battle. How do people get to know your name, your brand, your services? Our friends at Kabbage.com wrote this helpful article with some innovative tips for those who are searching for new clients and seeking to grow their brand awareness.
How to find customers without breaking your budget
The first time the owner of a local pizza shop first walked into Steve Gazda’s insurance agency, he walked out with a six-week old orange and black kitten. Two years later, he has his life and business policies from Steve’s Farmer’s Insurance firm.
And that outreach cost Steve next to nothing.
Marketing is a primary concern for new professional-services firms. A recent Kabbage® survey showed more business owners wished they’d spent more money on marketing in years one through four in business than those who wished they’d spent more on payroll, rent, inventory and equipment combined.
But how can you market effectively given the fragility of your budget in those early years?
We spoke to several Kabbage customers about low-cost marketing ideas and tips that have paid major returns for them.
Support a cause that is important to you while simultaneously promoting your business — a literal win-win.
Get Them In The Door
Before Steve started his insurance firm in East McKeesport, Pennsylvania, he’d sponsored a pet adoption night at his old job. It was a huge success. So, when he opened his own business, he decided to do it again — but even bigger.
“We now do pet adoption week,” Steve says. “Monday through Friday, we take our whole waiting room and it becomes an adoption center. I’m a certified volunteer at the shelter, so people can adopt on-site.”
Gazda partners with a local shelter for the event (he carefully vetted local organizations to find one with a strong reputation). He’s used the event to create strong bonds with the local community, as well as to drum up business. In fact, the pizza-shop owner and Steve himself wound up adopting cats from the same litter and have since become good friends.
“People walk in, they see what we’re doing, and they go, ‘Wow,’” Steve says. “They want to put their money with me because I’m supporting something they believe in.”
Use Social Media As a Tool
Jennyfer Crawford of AskJennyfer.com used social media to boost her profile in her Detroit market.
When Jennyfer Crawford started her Detroit-based marketing and consulting firm, Ask Jennyfer, she was looking for ways to target local artisans and entrepreneurs throughout the city.
So, she turned to social media.
By labeling her Instagram posts with targeted hashtags — and then searching for those hashtags online — she was able to pinpoint local businesses that needed help marketing their goods and services and reach out to them individually. She could also point them to All Things Detroit, her tri-annual showcase of city merchants.
In the early stages of growing her business, she found 60 percent of her clients through Instagram hashtags.
“It was a key for me,” Jennyfer says. “Besides Google, I felt like Instagram was my greatest tool early on.”
Make It Personal
Kevin Hennessey would prefer to spend money on sales rather than marketing as he grows Brabo Payroll, his Plymouth, Massachusetts-based payroll services firm.
He’s mostly turned to low-cost ideas instead — among them a bumper-sticker on his truck that tells people to text the word “Payroll” to a code and in return sends them a video about a local fundraiser he’s working on.
After spending money on an email marketing service, Kevin realized it wasn’t paying dividends. So, he decided the write the newsletter himself.
“I think I can do a better job of tailoring the voice and fitting my local market,” he says. “Why spend the money on something I could do better myself, and finish in an hour?”