No Marketing Budget? No problem. Spend time, not money.
By Elizabeth Morales
Vice president of Talita Cumi CR
If you are caught with no budget for marketing, rely on your reviews, referrals, email blasts, social media and blogs; all free and great revenue contributors. In an era where we trust complete strangers and their yellow stars, it is imperative that you send your existing customers a request to leave a fabulous review about your services. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want when you know you have given great customer service. People like helping other people, and your customers will love helping you.
Let them know you are trying to build an online presence and their opinions can make a difference between 10 customers per month to 25. Look at your competitor and see how many reviews he has, then set the goal to triple that number for your product or service. This is one of those instances where more is better. The more reviews, the better you look. Also, please ask that the review gives examples and
detailed information. Think of when you are researching an item or service, the more examples the clearer picture you form in your head of this place/person you have never done business with.
Examples and detailed info is what you want when people are reading a review of your services.
Referrals require a little bit of money, but it is not a full marketing campaign where thousands of dollars are coming out of your budget. Let your customers know you have a referral program in place. Offer a gift card to their restaurant of choice, movie tickets, Amazon card, iTunes card, anything people find an incentive to promote your business for their gain. A $25 gift card is not going to entice many people; a $100 card will. Also, don’t make the referral program too complicated. Make sure if there is fine print, customers are aware of it, and they see referring someone as a simple process with a big gain at the end. Plus, they are going to feel good about helping you, too. Take pictures of the happy customers with their gift card and place in your office, or social media, more about that later.
Sign up with an email marketing service, there are hundreds of places where you can take your business. These places will give you analytics on every email you send. Some of these companies even have their program for free depending on how many email addresses you upload or how many emails you send per month. Remember the old saying of you can’t improve what you don’t measure? That applies here. Once you send that email, look to see what the open rate and click-through rates are. They will compare that to industry standards and you will know if your campaign needs some tweaking. In the end what you are looking for is leads that become sales. Your emails should be short and to the point.
Always include a picture. Yes, a picture still speaks a thousand words, and even louder speaks a video. If you can make a short video explaining your product, offer, service, people will watch a 15 second video. But before that, what is the most important part of the email? The Subject line. Why? Because if it is not enticing enough, it doesn’t matter what you have in the email, the open rate is going to be really low.
Don’t use too many exclamation points or all caps; it may get looked at as a spam email and will never reach the intended recipient; or it will, but it will go to the junk folder. Not where you want to be. Brainstorm with your team about the email and the subject. Remember, the answer is always in the room. No team? No problem. Ask family members or friends to give you their opinion. You will be surprised at the many views everyone has on a simple Subject Line. Don’t want to do that just yet? That’s ok. Go through your own emails and see which call on you to open, and ask yourself why.
The big paradigm shift of Social Media marketing. Who would have thought that word of mouth would work? Wait. It always did. Now you get to do it at a much faster pace through any of the different platforms. The reason why you want to have a social media presence is the same reason you got a cell phone when you finally did. Everyone was doing it; it was convenient, now you can’t survive without it.
Well, same with Social Media. In this space, make it a total inclusion experience with all your customers. Everyone checks people and business’ Facebook accounts. If people see you have a page that constantly gets updated with pictures and latest news, they are going to want to be on one of those pictures at some point. After all, they have helped you build your business/reputation. Give them something back.
Tag them on a picture, ask them to share on their own page and perhaps others will also end up liking your page. Four likes on your FB page: your parents, aunt and uncle hit like. 40 likes on your FB page: your family friends and some customers hit like. 400+ likes on your FB page: that’s what you want. No one questions that number, and people feel it is a place they can trust.
Of course, if you wanted to set aside some money and advertise with FB, it is relatively easy. On your page, top right corner, click on ‘Create Ads’ and follow the prompts to get more likes on your page, have more views on a video, raise attendance at your event, get your product in front of the right set of eyeballs, etc…
If you didn’t have time or the desire to do any of the above-mentioned, then blog. Blogging can bring people to your page organically. Don’t know what to blog about? Simple. Think of the three questions you ask your prospects and the questions they have for you. Answer those questions and start becoming the authority on the subject. People will eventually know the information on this blog comes from a reliable source and from a connoisseur in the topic. The more traffic you have to your page the more leads that will come in, the less money and time you spend in marketing. More time for great customer service: your number one marketing plan.
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