How to Promote Your Local Business with a Small Advertising Budget?

Lockdown has forced the local businesses to go digital and sell their products. It indirectly benefits the entrepreneurs by decreasing the chances of fraud, late payment, and a bargaining system. And if you're not using the internet in 2021, then you're missing out on this immense opportunity that none other platforms have. You can promote your business even with a small advertising budget, with digital marketing. But one often comes up with questions like, how to advertise as a small business?, how much money I have to invest to market my business online?

The simple answer is," as much as you can." You can promote your small business through content marketing, GMB, etc., but for that, stay till the end of the article to get those free small business advertising tips before you jump on the next article.

Use these free & low-budget marketing and advertising strategies and start getting results within a few weeks.

12 Best Marketing and Advertising Tips to Promote Local Business

1. Use the Digital Medium.

As we've said earlier, if you're not using the internet, you do not see the big picture. So, create a robust online presence that can be a website, social media page, mobile application, etc., and use them to drive sales through a funnel.

It's simple, start creating content for the audience with consistency, and you'll automatically start getting traffic within a month.

2. Perform Niche Targeting.

Understand clearly your target audience, highlight their pain points and start creating ads or content around it to gain qualified traffic.

Choose relevant platforms as per your audience and then show ads to maximise your conversion with the least spends. This strategy works efficiently if you know how to run google ads or hire an agency or a digital marketer.

3. Reply to Your Audience.

We all know how we feel, so reply to them.

Reply to all the queries of your audience in an Instagram story mode or FAQ on your website. Answer them to know that you as a brand care about them. Shoutouts in the story with their name make people share it more in front of their friends.

4. Meme Marketing Strategy.

Everyone loves memes. Even Elon Musk loves to crack jokes on Twitter - so create memes by using the trend and involve your brand in it.

Why choose a meme marketing strategy?

Memes are most likely to be shared and get viral if a brand does it. Some famous meme taglines are - Yeh hum hai, yeh Hamari car hai, Aur yeh Hamari pawri (party) ho rhi hai; Binod meme (on which Paytm changed their official Twitter account name to Binod), which went viral over Instagram and YouTube within a week.

It's highly recommended from our side to use in your social media account.

5. Create Google My Business Page.

Don't tell us you've never searched for an institute on Google. We as an Indian always choose to purchase from a store with the highest ratings on google, because we trust Google.

Create your Google My Business with Free of Cost and complete all the details, so when someone searches for it, you rank first.

Why create a GMB Page?

Because it offers free traffic without spending on advertising, and all of them are qualified, as a man with torn shoes will only search for a shoe store, not you and us. We highly recommended this GMB Page to use in your business and scale to the next level.

6. Use Google AdWords to Rank Faster.

Run google ads for your business and use long-tail keywords to rank easily when people in your location searches for it. Search all the possible keywords and bid on them to get efficient results in less time.

For example, if Rahul stays in Kandivali and looks for "red buckle shoes", bid on keywords like red buckle shoes for men, shoe store near me, a shoe store in Kandivali, etc.

Google ads will start showing results within a few weeks. Unlike SEO, you've to wait for months to rank organically.

7. Think of SEO when Searching for the Long Term.

Be it a website, blog or page, you need SEO to rank them, or else all efforts will go in vain. Website or blog usually takes months to rank in SERP when done correctly, but it benefits a lot to your business, as it stays there for a long time.

You need to find the right keywords for your blog or website to rank them easily. One can easily learn SEO through free blogs, videos or hire a freelancer who will do it for you.

8. Celebrate Your Win with a Giveaway Strategy.

Use a giveaway strategy and announce the winners on your social media page; hold it by running a contest or a challenge like NO Shave November, 24 Hours Challenge, etc. The No-Shave November challenge campaign was initiated to spread awareness about cancer patients, where people will not cut their hair and donate it to them.

Tech Bloggers like technical Guruji (Gaurav Chaudhary) giveaway smartphones worth lacs to their subscribers as a thank you gift for supporting him in his journey.

9. Manage Your Expenditure.

The most basic mistakes Indian business or shop owners make are that they don't manage their income and expenditure, which drains their money and cannot track their profit margin.

To tackle this situation, you can join us here; we help you manage and track every penny you spend in your business with the easy-to-understand software so that any proprietors can use it. Send payment reminders to your vendor and track the debt to be paid.

The simple interface makes you love it, and the mobile application helps you track the data from your smartphone.

10. Track Employee/Staff Performance.

Your business will depend on your employee's performance, so track their daily attendance, salary slips, compensations, and leaves.

To overcome this obstacle, use our sub-product here to manage all of the above categories through your smartphone without paying single bucks for it. It saves your time and increases your efficiency in your business.

11. Email Marketing for an Existing Audience.

Collect email addresses of your potential audience by asking questions like what they can expect from you in the future, what problems are they facing, and how can you solve that?

After you have enough audience databases, now mail them weekly through your newsletter about newly launched products/services or new pricing/discounts, etc. Highlight their pain points in the first para while writing, offer its solutions in the second, and give them regards.

12. Reach Out to a Micro-Influencer.

Micro-influencers are people whose followers range from 1k-100k. Connect with a micro-influencer within your niche, offer them your products or services for Free, and give them some monetary benefits.

But why choose an influencer?

Influencer generally promotes those products they use, and they have a real fan base that offers a great connection with their audience. Micro-influencers will be helpful to your business in the future to promote upcoming products/services. So having them gives your brand a real edge over your competitors.

Conclusion

Implement these low-budget marketing tips in your business and scale it exponentially, but don't judge too early before applying all of them. Start with a few of them like websites, SEO, GMB, etc., and start creating content because people are likely to buy from a brand that creates valuable content.

Are you tracking employee attendance, payout, and stock management? Connect with us here and integrate it with your business.

Also read:

1) 10 Best Ways to Promote Your Small Business
2) How Many Social Media Sites Can I Promote My Online Business On?
3) Online Business Ideas You Can Start Quickly
4) 8 Online Business Ideas That Could Make You Hit Gold in 2020
5) OkCredit: Simple, Paperless & Secure solution for businesses

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FAQs

Q. Do I have to pay Google for my business?

Ans. No, it is completely free, and any small business owner can use it to present themselves online.

Q. Is the giveaway strategy mandatory for my business to grow?

Ans. Never, it's an alternative strategy for getting free traffic to your local shop. Use it only when you can bear the budget.

Q. Which is the best strategy for a local business owner?

Ans. GMB Page with high-quality images, google ads, and data tracking software to manage your supplies.

Q. Any email marketing tools to collect data from my target audience?

Ans. Use Aweber, Mailchimp, Convertkit, Google Forms (Social Media), ConstantContact, etc.

Q. How can I connect with an influencer?

Ans. Connect with them on Instagram (they use), visit their website, and pitch them on email in a professional manner to close your chances of having a deal with them.