5 Marketing Tips For Businesses On A Budget

So you want your business to grow and know that marketing is important, but you don't have the capital to invest in a fancy marketing firm? Here are 5 simple tips that can help you increase leads to your business:

1. Advertising Trials

Google, Bing & Yahoo! and Facebook Ads all offer free trials to try out their services. This is a temporary way to increase business and it requires little to no investment on your part. Before using these services make sure to do your homework on how they work, they can create many leads if used correctly.

2. Blogs

Blogs are an amazing way to get the word out on your product or service. Stick to the main ones like Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress and so on. If you are having trouble creating content for your brand, then talk about topic that interests you and is relevant to your brand. Make a commentary about it and provide a link to the source. Not all content has to be original. Best of all, most of them are free and get indexed in all major search engines!

(See 15 Best Blogging & Publishing Platforms)

3. Facebook

Facebook deserves it's own point just because it has become a very powerful way to inform customers of sales, new products and just your online presence in general. Best of all, Facebook Pages also gets ranked in major search engines.

4. Social Media

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn all fall in this category. Your business needs to be active in at least two of these channels if not more. It's a time commitment and big companies typically outsource this work to Marketing Agencies, however most of the content that you share can overlap and be the same. If you don't know what to post, pull up some of your favorite companies and follow their format!

5. Networking Events

There are many types of business centric networking events. A quick search on the internet will give you some ideas on the types of places that you can meet like minded individuals. The key is to find one that is related to your business, most of these "Associations" typically charge a monthly/yearly fee however it's likely that they host events that are free throughout the year to encourage memberships. They can not only help you create leads but give you some suggestions on how to operate your business more successfully.