Business Information

Mar­ket­ing Your New Brand or Busi­ness on a Bud­get: 4 Quick Tips

by: Joseph Giorgi
If you’re a new or soon-​to-​be busi­ness owner, then you’re prob­a­bly already feel­ing over­whelmed. That’s under­stand­able. After all, mar­ket­ing a young busi­ness on a tight bud­get is hard work. The good news? It’s the kind of hard work that really pays off, as long as you’re will­ing to put in the effort. If you’re look­ing to advance your company’s rep­u­ta­tion off the bat with­out break­ing the bank to do it, then you’ll want to keep a few things in mind:

1. Pro­mote Unity

If you want con­sumers to appre­ci­ate your brand, then your employ­ees will have to appre­ci­ate it first — in fact, they’ll have to love it. Let your team know how impor­tant it is to main­tain a healthy and coöper­a­tive work­ing envi­ron­ment. Encour­age your staff to com­mu­ni­cate with one another and to help fel­low employ­ees when­ever pos­si­ble. Why? Because an enjoy­able work­ing envi­ron­ment will incen­tivize your staff to pro­mote the brand out­side of the work­place! If they enjoy work­ing there, then they’ll be more apt to spread the word about what your com­pany has to offer.

2. Start Blogging

Your web­site plays an inte­gral role in shap­ing your brand iden­tity. It needs to be appeal­ing to your cus­tomers and it needs to offer them some­thing in return for the time they spend there — a blog accom­plishes both! Whether you’re using your blog to announce sales and spe­cial offers or to muse about the lat­est indus­try hap­pen­ings, cus­tomers will appre­ci­ate know­ing that your busi­ness has personality.

3. Be Social

Social pres­ence is a neces­sity. Face­book and Twit­ter are prime real estate for com­pa­nies look­ing to pro­vide the kind of one-​on-​one cus­tomer inter­ac­tion that peo­ple want from a mod­ern brand, so make sure that your brand isn’t behind the eight ball. Direct engage­ment and inter­ac­tion with your cus­tomer base will help boost your brand’s rep­u­ta­tion. If cus­tomers enjoy inter­act­ing with your com­pany through online social net­works, then they’ll be more likely to fre­quent your main site.

4. Adver­tise Affordably

Tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials and radio spots are use­ful, but they’re costly — more costly than most small busi­ness own­ers can afford. The trick is to get your brand image out there as inex­pen­sively as pos­si­ble. Nov­elty pro­mo­tional items are a prac­ti­cal way to do it. Cus­tomize your own give­aways and use them as hand­outs at trade shows or local events. Poten­tial cus­tomers love freebies!

Whether you real­ize it or not, the steps you take in pro­mot­ing your young busi­ness will lay the foun­da­tion for what could become a block­buster brand. Don’t think of your mar­ket­ing and pro­mo­tional efforts as a chal­lenge. Think of them as an oppor­tu­nity — an oppor­tu­nity to gain cus­tomers’ trust and admi­ra­tion early on in your company’s life.

About the Author

Joseph Giorgi is a writer, blog­ger, and video spe­cial­ist for Qual­ity Logo Prod­ucts, Inc., a pro­mo­tional prod­ucts and cus­tom apparel dis­trib­u­tor. You can find his work on the Qual­ity Logo Prod­ucts mar­ket­ing blog or fol­low the com­pany on Face­book and Twit­ter to learn more.

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