Low-Cost Ways to Grow Your Small Business in 2021

1. Become a Leader in Your Niche or Industry

You can use your social media accounts to create posts and articles. Also, it is possible to participate in industry events, or even publish eBooks dedicated to your niche. Become an expert who is demanded by people looking for a certain kind of solution.

If you promote yourself as an expert, who can solve a specific problem, you will receive warm phone calls from people wanting to buy from you instead of making cold calls yourself and talking to people, who are not interested in your product.

This is an inexpensive way to grow your small business since you can make the best use of numerous platforms to share content. All you need is to take time to research your market and develop decent content.

This strategy works for all niche types, whether you are engaged in traveling or finance. Each niche has a web-based target audience struggling to learn more about their favorite product or service.

2. Organize a Free Event or Workshop

There is no better way to establish your brand awareness, showcase your expertise, and make new contacts than by organizing a free event or workshop for your target audience. Find a location (maybe someone can even offer a room free of charge!).

Bonus tip: Bring your top-notch business cards with you to hand them out. Inform your potential clients about special promotions they can take advantage of after signing up for your newsletter. Thus, you can use a whole set of marketing ideas at the same time without spending a fortune!

3. Create a Customer Reward Program

The most widely-used way to grow your small business and get new clients is referral marketing. You will hardly find a marketing strategy that can convince new buyers of your reliability and experience as much as personal referrals. If you want to make people talk about your brand, consider creating a customer reward program.

Offer a discount for recommending your services to their friends, and give a discount to their friends as well. This will be an additional incentive for people to contact you. If every satisfied customer brings a friend, soon you will be able to double your company’s client database.

4. Boost Sales Using Email Newsletters 

Email newsletters are the best way to reach potential and returning customers with a system that builds relationships and increases sales. If you haven’t tried this approach yet, you can use dedicated email marketing software to help automate this process.

5. Boost Your Business’s Visibility

Improve your online business visibility. Incorporate SEO technologies in your work to drive your rankings in search engines. If you run a brick-and-mortar business, you need to mark your business location on a Google map. 

Avoid promoting your business only through your Facebook or any social media platform page since you always be under the heel of their algorithms. Make sure you are in search results by typing in your website/company name and your location in the Google search. 

6. Automate Your Tasks

Marketing your small business requires time and patience. Nevertheless, it is possible to take advantage of inexpensive or free marketing automation tools. For example, you can incorporate Hootsuite and Buffer to manage your social media scheduling.

7. Create Social Media Contests

Online contests help you drive your brand awareness and attract potential clients. When people participate in a contest or giveaway, they show interest in your products and services. Even if they don’t win a prize, many participants will definitely make a purchase because they are now familiar with your business and brand.

8. Be Socially Active 

To effectively grow your small business, you need to build connections with your clients. Take it one step further by being active on social media. 90% of marketers believe social media is critical to their business. 

Building a good online presence on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and other platforms can help you communicate better with your customers. If social media management isn’t your forte, delegate this task to a professional.

9. Increase Your Site Speed

Time is money, especially when it comes to web page loading. Google research shows that more than half of mobile users leave a site that takes more than three seconds to load. Amazon found that just one second of a load lag time can cost $1.6 billion a year in lost sales. Test the speed of your site to make sure it’s fast and users can interact with your content promptly.

10. Improve Your Local Marketing Strategy

The web may be the best playing field for businesses of all types and sizes, but the local market is still a valuable resource for all small companies.

You can distribute attention-grabbing business cards. Rather than using boring layouts, try to produce something creative. There is no need to approach designer services since you can use ready-made business card templates. You can also offer free consultations, join your local community of entrepreneurs or professionals, etc.

11. Wow with High-Touch Customer Service

There is no need to spend lots of money to create good customer service. Sometimes it is necessary to make some investments, but, most often, you need to be patient.

If your company has the same level of services as competitors, you can make your brand stand out by providing high-touch customer service. It is the most popular method in the industry that helps a company anticipate the issues its customers will probably have. Even though it is rather difficult to achieve immediate results, this game is worth the candle.

12. Remember about a Mobile Version

Another tip for growing a small business is to create a mobile-friendly website. Check out whether customers can find you online, both on a desktop computer and a mobile device. Mobile-centric design is mainstream since 2019, which means Google has primarily been considering a mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking.

13. Take Part in Collaborative Projects

It doesn’t mean that all marketing strategies should be implemented by a single company. You can considerably improve your marketing performance by joining forces with other professionals whose business complements yours. 

You can create special offers or other promotions and grow your audience together. However, instead of working with large organizations, try to collaborate with companies with a similar level of development.

When each party announces a special offer to their clients, you achieve a chance to advertise your services to the target audience of a competing company free of charge. You can reach a much wider range of people than if you did it alone. Thus, you can build trust among novice clients while cooperating with a company they rely on.

14. Use Pay-Per-Click Advertising

You can use the pay-per-click (PPC) Internet advertising model aimed at driving traffic to your site. It is possible to choose a campaign based on your financial opportunities. You can taste the water by using free advertising credits offered by the majority of platforms. 

Thus, you can understand how this marketing model works before you invest in it. Remember to deactivate ad campaigns if they haven’t generated enough revenue to pay for themselves.