Marketing Tips Part 1

The key to having a successful business is Marketing Marketing Marketing! With starting up a business, the money you invest in marketing may be less then you'd like, but you can still make it work! I came across some information indicating that the best way to keep your marketing rolling, is to occassionally splurge on those things that are more costly, and in between to do the less costly marketing tricks.

First tip- Always leave a business card. Always. Give them to your friends to give away, give them to your family members, leave them on cork boards (and another idea that Carly mentioned to me for those left on cork boards, is to get business cards made in post card size!!! Draws the eye right to them!) Put them in all outgoing mail. Leave them with the tip at a restaurant (assuming you didn't tick off the waiter for any reason). Leave them with past clients. A new idea I've just had- offer clients a rebate for passing along business cards to those who buy from you. A referral fee. Get it printed on that back of your business card. Or even offer a discount/coupon on your the back of your business card.

Example:

Redeem this business card before (enter date here) and receive a 15% off of your services/goods!


Second Tip- ALWAYS HAVE A WEBSITE! For the love of Pete, if you don't have a website, get one. It doesn't have to be elaborate, but it does have to be out there for people to find. Everyone and their monkey uses the internet to find businesses anymore, and if you're not available, you're missing out on a whole lotta business! You can do this for a relatively low cost. Microsoft Office Live offers free web hosting and they charge $15 a year for the domain name. Your first year is free. There are many other web hosts out there to assist you in building your website. Be sure to add Meta Tags to your site, and to add it to search engines (see the post below). Send it to everyone you know, link it anywhere you can.


Third Tip- Buy Leads. This wont be applicable to all businesses, but there are some that it will. Service Magic offers lead buying for many businesses that offer home improvement services (this is near and dear to our hearts since I run Peterson Tree Services and Carly runs Hayden Transformations). The company charges a set up fee (I believe service magic is $100), and then you buy leads from them. You can buy as much or as little as you'd like and you can set a budget. The leads vary in price (Tree Service leads for instance run around $10 each, while contracting leads run higher). The leads you receive are customers that are ready to buy what you have to offer. Check to see if there's a lead buying service for your business!






Please post your marketing tips in our comments box!