Business

Offline vs Online Marketing – 11 Effective Low-Cost Strategies to Kick-Start Your Business

By Ryan Bradman | March 22, 2023

Table of Contents

When running a business, regardless of the size of your business, you need a marketing strategy so that your product or service can be recognized and accepted by the market. But for those of you who have limited funding sources, you will think twice about implementing marketing strategies that require a lot of funds, and of course will prefer low-cost marketing strategies.

Cheap doesn’t mean the results will disappoint you, there are some marketing strategies such as through social media that are also quite effective in increasing brand awareness. Here are some things you can do to support you in carrying out a low-cost marketing strategy.

Offline Marketing Strategy

Even though the world has entered an all-digital era, it does not mean that the conventional way of marketing has completely lost its touch. There are still a couple of offline marketing strategies that can be implemented and thus able to contribute to raising awareness.

Build a Business Network

If your business focuses on B2B, try to build professional business relationships with other companies that are also in your target market.

Attending Events

Another great way to tap into new potential customers is by attending events that suit your type of business. You can either sponsor the event or open a booth at the event.

During the event, you need to find a way to attract customers, so they will visit your booth to learn more about your product. You can try to design the booth as catchy looking as possible, create giveaways and competitions, or distribute free gifts in exchange for people’s time.

If you are planning to produce and distribute gifts, we recommend you to purchase My Own Water bottled water. During an event usually, people will need water to replenish their energy and lose water in order not to get dehydrated, especially if the event is done during the day. Thus distributing water bottles is a really spot-on product that can attract customers.

Convey Personal Thank You Messages

Consumers will be happy if they get appreciation from you. You can do this by sending an email, or inserting a thank you note when the consumer has completed the transaction. This method is very effective in increasing your customer loyalty.

Create a Customer Loyalty Program

No matter what type of business you have, a loyalty program for customers will encourage them to buy your products over and over again. Customer loyalty is of the utmost importance to the success of your small business. Remember that a loyal customer will help your business grow.

Offer Special and Free Vouchers

Ask your customers to subscribe to your email newsletter to gain attractive voucher codes which they can use. This is a great way to help increase sales and encourage people to subscribe to your email list. Indulge your customers in order to attract more sales.

Online Marketing Strategy

Take advantage of Email Marketing

Even though the popularity of email is decreasing, it is still effective in providing a fairly high Return On Investment (ROI), and the costs required are also quite affordable. Email marketing or newsletter can be used as a way to inform customers of ongoing or newest promo.

Use Analytics Tools

With analytics tools, you can study your website traffic, how long customers spend upon visiting your site, learn which pages are the most optimized, and so on.

Create a Contest

People like competition, so you can try to make an online contest, such as a photo contest, to engage the customers. You also don’t need to provide gifts that are too expensive; gifts such as shopping vouchers, your products, and discounts can be a great option.

Make a Blog

When creating content for a blog, make sure you provide high-quality content that is relevant to the target market. With a blog, you can also apply SEO techniques so that your blog ranks at the top of the Google search list. The after effect of this might not be immediately felt, but in the long run, it will do wonders for your business.

Showcase Testimonials

Testimonials are very helpful in convincing others to buy or use your services. Testimonials will be better if they show a profile photo of the customer to showcase that the comment is really from a real customer.

Guest-Posting

This method allows you to publish articles about your product on other websites with prior agreement. This way, you can introduce your product in other people’s space that already has a good reputation and a wider reach.

You should also learn more about your competitors to create a better marketing strategy. Starting from the SWOT analysis, their marketing strategy, how is the quality of their products, and other things that you might need to know. That way, you will be able to see the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, and you can use them as evaluation material.