Grow Business with Smart Ideas
“A smart business person will use even an elevator to advertise”
Yes, the above quote is true. Imagine going up the ladder, wearing a smart T shirt with your company logo and clever company tagline knitted on it. Obviously, those travelling with you in the lift are bound to check your logo and that’s it, your purpose is served. True, money can buy you advertising space, but clever ideas can buy you more advertising and lots of visibility at no cost.
In this highly competitive and expensive market oriented economy, growing your business without spending a penny is something that looks like a mirage. However, it is most definitely real. Here you will be shared with ideas that will help you grow your business without spending a penny. Sounds like a hoax? It isn’t actually. Check it out for yourself:
Word by Mouth
Nothing like someone else talking about your work! This maybe the oldest form of advertising, but it still works like a miracle. With so many advertisements floating around everywhere, people have become doubtful about what to believe in. So, when a person speaks well about your product or you, it becomes authentic. Say for example, in a tuition class, one happy student will bring in all his or her friends and within no time the tuition class will be flooded with more. It becomes a chain reaction and one person pulls a few more. For this you have to ensure that your customers are happy with you and walk out smiling, within no time you’ll be the talk of the town. Make sure that your customers vouch for you. Remember that this is ‘the most’ effective way to market your product.
A satisfied customer is your best advertisement…
Give Your Customers a Great Customer Experience
After all the customers spend their hard earned money on your products or services, so they deserve to be happy and satisfied. Therefore from the moment they enter your premises to the time they leave, you have to make them feel special — — offer them water, beverages, make them super comfortable. Have you seen upmarket showrooms, they have excellent crockery in which they offer you water, tea or other beverages. So it doesn’t matter how small your business is, what matter is how you make your customers feel. When they think of the product or service you offer, they should only think of you.
Get Your Customers to Speak for you
Your customers should on their own advertise for you, which they will anyways do if they are satisfied with your business. But sometimes, you have to coax them by sharing your website or Facebook link and encouraging them to share their reviews. You could offer them free gifts or free services for their reviews. Have a Facebook and other social media pages where your customers can leave good reviews about you. Make sure that you respond to these reviews by liking them or giving a small thank you.
It is a known fact that now a days, people trust reviews more than anything else, and so before they buy a product, they read reviews. Even if you see prominent shopping sites like Amazon or Macy’s, they are all full of reviews, reason being that the moment we like a product, we first go to the review section and check. In short, your customers have to be your spokespersons as the customer reviews are super important and can take your business several notches up.
Free Always Sells
Imagine if someone were to offer you something good and useful for free, would you say no? Wouldn’t you share this information with other people too, at least your loved ones? Similarly, other people would latch up to your free offers. To get your business rocking, offer free gifts, free vouchers, free discount coupons or free services to your existing and prospective customers. This is a sure shot way of becoming known in the market and amongst the people. Customers enjoy free stuff as they can enjoy without spending. Also they can judge if they’d like to continue using the product or service, so obviously they don’t at all mid the free stuff.
For you it is easy and less expensive and additionally you get extra benefits of marketing yourself. By offering free stuff you have opened your doors for the prospective customers and in all likelihood you will get repeat customers. These new customers will in turn get you more customers.
But be careful, don’t overdo the ‘free stuff’. Make sure that the free offer is only for a short period of time and in that period people should get very used to you and should like your services. Remember free stuff is for you to gain publicity, you’re not starting a charity.
Get a Website
If you do not have a website then immediately get a website of your company. A website is as necessary as having a phone. Irrespective of age or profession, everyone looks up on the net for anything they want. So whether it is booking a hotel room or booking a flight to downloading a free movie, a customer will look up for websites of his or her interest. You cannot lose valuable and lucrative customers by not having a website.
A website will get you a large audience and inquiries and through your website alone you can get a large clientele. In the present scenario, getting a website is not the luxury of big companies, in fact, smaller companies have more requirement of their own websites.
It is not expensive to get a website. Though there are loads of online platforms that’ll let you make your own website for free, even if you have to pay to get one, it’s quite reasonable. For free websites you just have to have a Google email account and you can start with a one pager website of yours, in which you can describe your services, products and your unique selling proposition.
Draw more customers to your business through a well written and designed website and within no time, you will generate more inquiries and grow your business.
Offering discounts and deals is yet another very effective way of marketing your products and services. There are some buyers who only buy a product or use services when there are discounts going on or some deal being offered. So, let’s say a salon is offering three haircuts at the cost of one. This offer is bound to get lots of clients interested. Or a women’s apparel shop offering a 40% to 50% discount will have women thronging to buy. One client will tell about this steal deal to others and your business is set. You how how on Black Fridays in America, people go absolutely nuts shopping. Shops are over- crowded and within no time, shelves become empty.
Plan out something special for your customers and they’ll get their friends and friends of friends and relatives to your business.
Get Listed
By getting yourself listed in directories like ‘Yellow Pages’ you make yourself all the more visible. The directories will promote you in their books and online too. They may also have special offers for you through which you could better promote your business. There are free listings too, some popular ones like Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing Places let you register free of cost. Whenever someone looks up for a particular product or service, these dictionaries will pop up your name.
Now isn’t that just great? So get yourself on their platform as soon as you can.
Be Seen On Social Network
There is no better way today to become known than being on a social platform. Get a Facebook page, LinkedIn page. Post pictures on Instagram, tweet about your products and services. Your social media presence should be so emphatic that the moment someone looks up for your kind of business, your name pops up. Social media are easy methods of getting people to know about your business. Like if you’re a dog trainer and have a Facebook page, the moment someone looks up for a ‘Dog trainer Your City Name’, your name will appear in the list of trainers in your city. Now anyone who is searching for a dog trainer will surely talk to a number of trainers and you have a fair chance of being called to. So ensure that your social media pages are well- crafted and give loads of information in a clear manner so that your prospective customers when they look up for you are attracted enough to meet you or at least talk to you.
So, with smart ideas and cleaver thinking businesses can grow without burning a hole in the pockets. Use these ideas and grow your business.