Nearly two-thirds of businesses will last 2 years, half will last 5, and only one-third of businesses will last 10 years.
The competition for small businesses in America is tough. As a business owner, you have to be constantly looking for ways to promote your company and capture the attention of new customers.
If you’re looking for creative ways to advertise, this is the article for you. Read on to learn about 9 creative marketing tips on how to get your business out there.
1. Create a Blog
Making a blog one of the main parts of your website can give you a 434% higher chance of ranking highly on Google and other search engines.
A well-crafted blog helps your customers find you. In fact, once you write 21-54 posts, your blog web traffic can go up by 30%.
A blog is a mode of communication between you and your customers. If you’re doing it right, you’re creating a two-way relationship. You provide useful content; your audience reads and shares that content with others.
How do you create a compelling blog? You need to know your audience first. Once you understand your target audience and their interests and needs, you can craft blog posts tailored to them.
2. Give Out Unique Promotional Swag
Promotional items give a 55% more favorable impression of the business that gives them away. In fact, 85% of customers did business with a company after receiving a promotional item.
Giving out promotional freebies helps establish your brand and helps people remember your name.
What are the most popular items? Bags are a popular choice as they can result in 6,000 impressions compared to other promotional items.
However, if you want to get more creative, you can choose more unique freebies such as bubbles, jump ropes, or temporary tattoos with your brand name. You can also choose items that are useful and functional such as lanyards or flashlights.
3. Send a Handwritten Thank You Card
Sincere, human interaction can help set you apart from other businesses. One way to make your business more genuine is by sending handwritten thank you cards to your customers.
This can be a way to show customers that you appreciate doing business with them.
Depending on the size of your company, you can send handwritten thank you cards with each order shipped to your customer. The card can include a brief, thank you and signature from you.
If that’s not possible, you can also send out cards during the holiday season. To address several cards at once, you can use tools such as rubber stamps for quickly printing your company’s return address–you can view here for more information.
4. Market Your Business Through Videos
Another tip for how to get your business out there is to create videos for your products. Nearly 90% of consumers say that videos help them make decisions about products.
Build a presence on YouTube and create helpful, informative videos for your customers. If you own a bakery, create how-to videos for recipes. If you own a yoga studio, post videos for a quick morning yoga pose to help your audience start their day off right.
5. Create a Contest
Another creative way to advertise your business is to create a fun contest or challenge.
One simple contest idea is a photo caption contest. Post a funny picture that connects with your business or product and tells your followers that the funniest caption wins a prize.
Another contest idea is a selfie contest. Have people post selfies with your products and tag your company. However, this idea may work best for those who already have established, popular products.
6. Connect with Influencers
In addition to these social media marketing ideas, you can connect with social media influencers to help spread the word of your product or business.
A social media influencer is someone who has a dedicated following and established credibility in a specific industry. Look for influencers in your industry and reach out to them to see if you can work together to market your product or services.
7. Create a Referral Program
You can offer incentives for your clients to refer more customers. This can work well for a business such as a dentist office. If a customer refers a friend, they can get an incentive such as a gift card or a promotional item.
Referral programs also work great with subscription box services. For every new customer referred, you can offer credit at your online store or a discount for future orders.
8. Create a Free E-Book
One option for how to get more business is to create a free e-book to give away to customers.
The content of the e-book will depend on your niche. For example, if you run a women’s online clothing store you can create an e-book for how to dress for the fall season.
If you’re an accountant, you can create an e-book about how to pay off all your debt within a year. Think about what is most important to your audience and how you can help them solve their problems.
You can offer your e-book to download by allowing customers to fill out a contact form. This way, you can have their contact information and start to build a relationship with them.
9. Create a Newsletter
If you want to continue building a relationship with your customers, start sending out a company newsletter. You can talk about new company updates in your newsletter.
Also, make sure to include interesting, useful content to your customers such as information about upcoming sales and blog articles.
Our Final Tip for How to Get Your Business out There
Our final tip for how to get your business out there is to always provide excellent customer service.
Even if you do all the right marketing and advertising, you still need the foundation of consistent, positive customer service so that your customers are happy and will want to tell others about your business.
Want to learn more about creative ways to advertise and how to market your product? Read our marketing and promotion blog.