I’m working on the section of my upcoming book on marketing right now and I’d love your input! If you’ve started a business, can you share your best marketing tips?
I’d especially love specific stories or details related to have you marketed by:
- Offering try-it-for-free opportunities
- Offering a free consultation
- Word of mouth
- Cross-promoting other businesses
- Social media
- Any other creative (and mostly free) ideas you have tried and been successful with are more than welcome!
You can leave your answers as a comment on this post or email them to crystal @ moneysavingmom.com. Thank you so very much for your help!
As always, any comments left on this post or emails you send it will be considered for publication in my upcoming book. If you would prefer to remain anonymous or not to have your comment or email published, please let us know when submitting it.
Tawra Kellam says
The best thing we have learned about marketing is don’t be stingy! When we self published our cookbook Dining On A Dime Cookbook we gave away HUNDREDS of copies for review. Yes, we had to pay for the shipping and the books but the free advertising from it was way more than we could have ever paid for! So if you have a product give away a lot of reviews to bloggers, newspapers, magazines and radio and TV!
Joyce says
I own a lawn care company and I employ my sons and other young people. I provide them with an environment to learn the value of hard work and the satisfaction that comes from a job well done. I also teach them to treat others the way they want to be treated and to create relationships with our clients.
My website has been very valuable. I continue to receive calls from new clients that have found us online. I also have a Facebook page where I share gardening tips and photos of the projects we have worked on or my own personal garden.
Another valuable tool that I have used to grow my business is joining a local networking group. It is a great way to share with other business owners the “why” I do what I do and follow it up with the “how” I do it. I have formed relationships with these people and they have given me many referrals because they know and trust me. It has been a great resource as well for encouragement and information about growing a business.
Placing the company logo on my vehicles has also helped people recognize our company and connect us with the work we perform. I receive many comments about seeing our trucks all around town.
My business has doubled in the last two years. I attribute most of it to these things as well as word of mouth referrals.
Steph @ From the Burbs to the Boonies says
We have a used car dealership in a small town (less than 15,000). My husband and his father started it 20 years ago. We continue to be successful because of 3 things, all marketing related. 1. Word of Mouth. My husband and his father ALWAYS stand behind the vehicles they sell. First of all they work really hard to find quality vehicles and most of ours are in the 150K to 200K mileage range, and under $5000 price, so that is not an easy feat. They take care of people. They are super kind and go out of their way to help people. If there is a problem with a vehicle, they fix it. They do not leave you high and dry. That gets around. We get lots of repeat business and lots of referrals (even from local banks and the big new car store in town!). 2. Location. We are directly across from a Walmart and next to a Dollar Tree. You can’t always get such a good location (there was nothing nearby when they started!) but if you can somehow get your products SEEN that is great. 3. Cheap advertising. I personally do all of our advertising. We have so far avoided paying for it. I built us a very inexpensive website that gets us 70 to 80 hits a week. Not tons, but not bad for such a small town biz. I put all of our cars on Facebook. I put some things on Craigs List, though we are very picky now as they charge $5 per car listing, and everything goes on Nextech, a local Midwest classifieds that charges only $3 per month and 50 cents per listing. I make sure I answer all emails, update a few times a week. It works for us!
Angela says
I am a new start up on Etsy and my best advertising has been giving bags to people who have a large network for that particular bag. I make Essential Oil bags and I made a few for my EO friends and they have shared it with others. Reaching a network I couldn’t.
Pinterest and Facebook have been a good source of traffic to my site. Facebook is where it all began under my personal profile and now to it’s own page. But Instagram has been my BEST source of advertising. Hashtags are a wonderful way to get keyword searches, and traffic to my profile and later Etsy shop.
I recently agreed to give a bag to a blogger for review and she plans to give it away or make a code for my shop. Looking forward to seeing how that all works out. I don’t know how she heard of my shop, but it’s either Pinterest or Instagram.
You can find me of Etsy, FB or IG under Threads on my legs.
Nicole says
I’m the President and Founder of my online business, The Baby Sleep Site (www.babysleepsite.com), and in my years as a business owner, I have DEFINITELY learned a few things about marketing for online businesses:
1. We’re an online operation, and we have grown exponentially thanks to good old-fashioned SEO best practices. There is no substitute for doing good keyword research and writing blog content that is both useful to your audience AND keyword-rich — I’d say that hands-down, the best kind of free advertising an online business can engage in is really strong, keyword-focused blog content.
2. We have worked hard to forge partnerships with companies that also cater to moms, and this has yielded great results – it’s been a solid, reliable way to drive new traffic to our site, but even more, it has resulted in some strong relationships that have paid off over time. For example, I have a small network of bloggers that I love, and our relationships are so solid now that if I have a new product launch coming up, or if I think it’s time to host a giveaway, I can usually just say the word, and they’re happy to help (and vice-versa, of course!). I see partnering with other like-minded companies as a long-term marketing strategy — while it might not pay huge dividends in terms of additional traffic or increased sale volume right away, it pays off consistently over time, as both business grow.
3. I think in-kind advertising trade is a great option for small businesses, and can results in new customer traffic for little-to-no investment on the part of both companies – big win! We have done this with several different online companies – we trade advertising on our respective sites, or we send a promotional e-mail to a segment of each other’s respective lists. Not only does this help both companies keep the advertising budget in check, it helps to forge goodwill and positive relationships with other growing businesses – and again, if you nurture those relationships over time, it can really come to pay off for both organizations.
4. Giveaways! Again, this is mainly for online organizations (and the power of the giveaway is a little diminished these days, compared to what it used to be), but giveaways are still a great way for you to partner with other companies and coax “new eyeballs” over to your site. Giveaways are also great social media fodder – I’ve found that our social media audiences engage well when we promote Giveaways on Facebook and Twitter.
5. Create branded content for Pinterest – this is so easy to do. You don’t even need Photoshop skills – my team uses pixlr.com and picmonkey.com to create our branded content (both are online tools that are super easy to use). We started creating pretty, branded pictures to accompany our blog articles, and we’ve found that this has helped increase Facebook sharing of our blog articles, not to mention getting us more Pins that we were used to. This is a really easy, low-threshold (and free!) way to increase your reach.
6. Create something FREE (a small product, and e-book, etc.) that’s so juicy, your visitors won’t be able to pass it up. There’s nothing new about this strategy for online business, but it works very well: Create something that you know your customers really, really want. You can use this as a tool to collect e-mail addresses and run an e-mail marketing campaign, if you’re an online company, or you can simply use it as a tool to get new customers “in the door” (virtual or otherwise). Speaking from an online perspective, If you work on establishing strong relationships with other bloggers and like-minded businesses, you’ll find that many of them are happy to promote a new and exciting piece of content (especially if it’s free, and especially since it’s content that’s coming from a blogger they know and love). We do this with our free guide 5 Ways To Help Your Child Sleep Through The Night – it’s a guide that our exhausted readers really want, and it drives a lot of traffic to our site.
Ashley P says
Well, it’s not a MAJOR business, but I do have a way to make a little extra cash at work. I sell Cuban shots from my desk to my fellow employees. (I work for a tech support company. My techs LIVE on caffeine.)
I get most of my clients by word of mouth, but for new hires, I usually give a free sample. If they like it, they either get their shots per diem (at 10 cents a shot) or sign up for my monthly subscription of a shot a day for $2/month
Ebie says
I know that for my adoption agency, when we do an agency sponsored event (like the picnic we are hosting this week) we try to give away “swag bags” to each family or participant, as well as door prizes. This way, adoption-friendly companies, services, or small-businesses get a chance to advertise themselves to those impacted directly by adoption. It’s an easy donation, and we can usually get brochures for local adoption support groups and crisis pregnancy groups in as well, if they want to advertise an upcoming fundraiser or something. We buy the bags with our logo, and take donations for bags and door prizes. I know many other groups do this, as well as businesses who do trade shows. Everyone can contribute what they can or go in on a large door prize if they want. Free to cheap advertising for most (and the opportunity to get rid of excess product from another marketing enterprise if need ;)!
brandi says
I have a Mary Kay business. I always leave a personal note with my business card on the table when we go out to eat. Not that it’s often, but I have gotten several customers this way.
kelley Franklin says
I’ve been following your blog for years. You are an inspiration! I see you are reading Teddy’s Button to your kids. I LOVE Lamplighter Books. My son was saved after reading Teddy’s Button a few months ago. Blessings to your family. 🙂
Crystal Paine says
That’s so cool! Thanks for sharing!
Sonja says
Thank you for sharing that personal note about your son’s salvation. It really blessed me. After all, our children are our most important “treasure”, are they not?! 🙂