B2B marketing on a budget - strategies to maximise your resources

So, you are a small business that is just ticking along but you know that your product is great, why do your customers not see this too? A few more sales could really make a difference, but you don’t have a big marketing budget to set the industry alight.

Here are a few simple tips on how you can ensure more sales at minimal or no cost to you.

1. New customers

Creating new leads is the number 1 on businesses’ wish lists, but how do you do that without resorting to cold calling? First – don’t cold call, I am sure there is a well-oiled script that everybody in your company reels off every time they receive a spam caller. Make sure you are visible online, convenient and quick to use, and easy to understand. Make sure your potential customers can find you online on those platforms they use. This presents you with a free way to advertise yourself, so make the most of it. Fill in your bio on all the big-player-sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram. Link back to your website. Use relevant hashtags and keywords.

Engage with customers in your industry by liking, commenting, retweeting and sharing their content.

2. Improve customer experience

62% of customers will spend more on a simple buying experience. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly, fast, easy to navigate and tells your customers clearly what you do. Have your contact details easily accessible and only put things on there that are interesting or important to your new and existing clients.

3. Remind your previous customers of your existence

A sale should not be where the relationship with your customer ends. There could be a million reasons why they have not come back – so send them an email or a letter. Offer a discount or a freebie next time they buy. Give rewards for referring your business to their network. If a customer returns and has a hassle-free experience, they are halfway to becoming a loyal customer. The minimum follow-up should be to ask for feedback, this gives you data for testimonials.

4. Only useful, important, entertaining or exciting content

What are the kinds of questions you are answering all the time? For every time you have explained something in person, there are at least 100 people trawling the internet for answers.

You could:

• Do a video tutorial or introduce a new product
• Write a How-to guide
• Write content in ‘list format’ such as this one. No more than 10 – nobody is interested in a ‘Top 40’ and it is wasted content
• Use infographics that are informative/important to your audience
• You can use these across your email marketing, social media pages, and your website
• You can recycle some of the best performing post a few months later
• Share relevant 3rd?party content
• Include customer testimonials in your online presence
• You could even turn these into a slide show video (30 secs max.) – videos rank highly on engagement
• MOST IMPORTANTLY –?be active online and give your customers stuff they want to read or watch, or stuff they didn’t know was important to them

5. Create a loyalty/reward system

• customers collect points to get free stuff
• or you give them exclusive promotions or discounts if they come back within 30 days or spend over ￡￡￡
• Offer rewards for referring up to 3 new customers

6. Prove of how good you are – Industry awards

• Most industries have awards that set the standard
• Gives clients confidence in your business and is proof of your credibility and expertise

7. It’s party time!

Well, depends on your line of business or industry I guess. The term ‘event’ is probably more appropriate. This could be:

• Online – offering a day or week of bonuses, discounts, deals and competitions
• A real-life event to tempt new and existing customers to visit you
• Opportunity to answer questions or introduce a new product or range
• Create an inviting atmosphere, a buzz – drinks and nibbles, maybe a DJ if your budget allows
• free samples – or any free stuff
• A competition, giveaway or a raffle – basically free stuff

This allows for interesting content in the build-up. Use good-quality pictures on social media announcements or flyers and distribute them across all your online platforms. Competitions make for online engagement.

And finally, why not print some flyers and hand them out? It’s simple and cost-effective.

These tips will help you to find new leads, strengthen existing ones and hopefully get people talking about your business.