Most small businesses, especially in the current economy, are looking to save some money or reduce their expenditure. Fortunately, one area of your business where you can be successful without a huge budget is building brand awareness. In fact, when it comes to getting your brand out there, and getting noticed, it’s often the low-budget tactics that are the most effective.
Building brand awareness can increase traffic and conversion, help you to become a favorite brand, and give you a chance to reach a wider audience. It’s certainly worth investing your time in, but that doesn’t mean that you have to invest huge amounts of your money. Here are some of the best low-budget tactics when it comes to boosting brand awareness.
Create Eye-Catching Visuals
Eye-catching visuals get you noticed and remembered, especially if you make them easy to share. Spend time on sticker design, both for social media and to be printed and shared in real life, invest in vehicle wraps highlighting the benefits of your business, services, and products, and spend time on your business card, instead of using a generic option.
Be Active on Social Media
Being active on social media is one of the easiest and most effective ways to reach your audience, and you don’t need to spend a fortune on ads to do it.
Many businesses make the mistake of just sharing content on their social profiles. But sharing other things, including behind-the-scenes photos and videos of the less professional side of your businesses, and engaging with your audience and other small businesses can be far more effective.
Another mistake that many businesses make on social is trying to be everywhere. Think of your target market, and which social channels this demographic is more likely to use. Focus your time and money there.
Work with Influencers
Working with influencers can be a cost-effective way to boost awareness of your brand. If your marketing budget is small, find smaller, micro-influencers with an engaged following in the demographic you are trying to reach. Look for low-cost opportunities to work together that could benefit you both.
Content Marketing
Content marketing needn’t be expensive if you approach it in the right way. Create great content and post it on social media, on your website, and on third-party sites. A few quality guest posts published on high-traffic, relevant sites can help direct traffic back to your website.
Publish press releases if you have something newsworthy to say, such as a new product line or an impressive review posted by a reputable third-party website.
Create infographics full of useful stats and information, and encourage other sites to use them with a link back to your site.
Go the Extra Mile for Your Customers
Word of mouth marketing will always be one of the best ways to boost both awareness and trust. The best way to boost word of mouth around your business is to offer excellent customer service, going the extra mile for your customers whenever you can.
Incentivize existing customers by offering voucher codes if they share content on social media or refer your brand to a friend. Happy customers are usually much more inclined to do this and referral programs are a tried and tested way for brands to boost awareness of what they do.
Check Your Website
Many businesses make the mistake of spending a fortune on web design, only to find that while their website looks fantastic, it’s slow, it doesn’t work well on all screens, and the process of making a booking or sale is ridiculously complicated. This can lower conversion, and put a dent in your reputation, which isn’t ideal when you are trying to build brand awareness.
The good news is, that the best way to make sure your website works well is to test it out yourself, using a private browser. Be sure to check on different screens and use different browsers for accurate results.
Find A Cause
Championing a cause is a wonderful way to get known as a business that has values. This can get you noticed and remembered while helping you to build a positive reputation. Consider supporting local businesses, and try to be as environmentally friendly as possible, especially when it comes to packaging.
Get Out into Your Community
We often look online when we’re trying to build brand awareness without a big budget. But getting out into your local community, supporting other businesses and charities, sponsoring, being evolved in events, and reaching out, offering things like business mentor sessions at local colleges can be incredibly effective.
Freebies
Finally, don’t underestimate the power of free giveaways. Offering freebies to customers new and old encourages them to spread the word and buy again from your brand.
Boosting brand awareness can be very beneficial for business growth, and these tactics mean that you can do it successfully without spending more than you can afford.
