5 Cost-effective Marketing Solutions
The Internet really is a powerful medium, it gives swear to the average consumer, and levels the playing field for small companies. No longer is having a big marketing budget key (not that it mild doesn’t work) but a good clever ad will out-sell a “carpet-bombing” ad-campaign any day. Here are 5 simple ways you can integrate an online marketing campaign on a show-string budget and some spare time.
1) Facebook
Facebook is a social-media website used the world over for people to keep in contact with their friends, family and co workers. Not only that but users utilize the site to understanding events, share content and communicate, as well as play games to kill time . As a business we can take advantage of this virtual market place and draw in new customers, as well as increase the volume of sales to current customers.
There are two key ways for a business to use facebook: fan pages and account creation.
The first, and most simple way requires a basic facebook account. From there all you need to do is type in “Pages” on the search bar and click on the “Ads and Pages” application. Click “Create a page” and fill out all the needed info, then suggest the page to friends. The “fan-page” basically works as a stand alone story, however it can’t message or add users itself, but people can suggest their friends add the page. It’s also a lot simpler to maintain, however there are some draw-backs. Firstly, as of yet there’s no integration for fan pages with applications that mix social media feeds, such as Tweet Deck or Hoot Suite, with that you can’t link say a twitter account with a fan page. All this basically means is that you’ll have to come in and post updates yourself rather than posting to one service and being done with it.
The second, and less often used way is to create the business its own facebook account, all you need is an email address. This route is preferable to the business who would like to link services such as twitter and tumblr, so they can post to one space and have the update go out everywhere. As a bonus, this route allows you to have communication from the business’s name rather than messaging people through a personal account. Another bonus is that you can use mobile web to update the account, while you may not be able to update your fan page depending on your mobile web service. So if your company largely exists in places you don’t always have access to a computer, this may be a better route for you. One significant draw-back is that you’ll have to score people as friends, and it’s a lot trickier for people to suggest your business to their friends. So either route you take, expect a time investment.
2) Twitter
Along with facebook there’s another new service called “Twitter”. What twitter is, in it’s essence is to answer the questions “What are you thinking about right now? ” or “What are you doing right now? ” the answer must be completed in 140 characters or less. The creators picked this number for two key reasons: It allows tweets to be sent as text messages to their users (should you opt in) and it keeps it brief, which is perfect for the information age we’re living in where often times people won’t read more than a few sentences.
The benefits of twitter are quite vast, with the main benefit of twitter being that other social media platforms like Myspace require that you accept a user as a friend in order for them to see your updates in their news feed. Twitter instead uses a system of “Followers” someone stumbles upon your page and if they like it, they follow you; all you have to do is regularly update. Another benefit of Twitter is that it’s great at integration. Both facebook and Myspace allow you to update your status by tweeting (and vice-versa) and sites like Tumblr and Twitpic (a photo sharing site) will post your updates to twitter automatically. In addition to that there is a myriad of free applications out there that allow you to manage your twitter. You can even write tweets in advance and schedule them to be sent.
3) Blogs
The next device is a simple and time-tested approach to business. Keeping your customers and stake-holders up-to-date with a blog. There’s thousands of blog sites out there to use, but I personally prefer Tumblr for its ease of use and lack of annoying advertisements. Another great bonus of tumblr is that it’s highly integratable with other social-media, it will automatically update your twitter and facebook to tell all your friends when you’ve posted an update, and link them to said update.
The key to a successful blog (and any social-media really) is to take a bit of the focus off of yourself and share content that might be interesting to your customers. For example, if you’re a bike shop and a new trail opens up you should share that. Don’t just post “Come in and say you saw our twitter and get $5 off!” while that can have some effect it gets old fast and you’ll soon see your numbers slump. Hold it interesting, and update regularly, at least 2-3 times a week.
4) Create Buzz
This idea is a bit more abstract, than the previous suggestions. Basically your goal is to create word of mouth advertising in as cheap of a way as possible. One simple solution here is to create something out of the ordinary and place it where people will see it. While a effect on the side of the road may not attract a second look, a 15 foot tall snow-man might. If you can create something that becomes a land-mark people WILL talk about it, and people may approach to see it for themselves, or even better rob pictures with it, which furthers the buzz.
What does this have to do with the internet? Simple, you can use your twitter, facebook or blog as a jumping off point. In the previous example we built a 15 tall snow-man outside our shop. From here we can take a picture and upload it to our Tumblr, which sends out a spy on our facebook and twitter, and BANG people start showing up to see the thing. The key is to include a “time-hammer”, something that provides a sense of urgency, and gets customers to take action. Going back to our snow man example, he’s obviously going to melt at some point, which is a Time-Hammer, but we can take it one step further by making the thing a sale “10% off until the snow-man melts”. You’ve just given people something interesting to talk about, a reason to come into your store and a time-hammer to get them to do it now. This is how you successful manufacture a hype-based marketing promotion.
5) User created content.
The last method of the internet is similar to building buzz, but takes all the creativity on the businesses end out of it. Basically, all you do is come up with some prizes, say a gift-card or monetary prize, and then advertise a contest over facebook/twitter/your blog for a user-made ad. From there all you have to do is sit-back and peruse the entries pile up on youtube. The important key here is to have the winner be chosen by a polling system, this way the contributors of the ad will tell their friends to watch the ad and vote for them, creating a free marketing campaign for your product or store.
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Filed under VoIP Office Solutions by on Jan 29th, 2012. 
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