Most small businesses don’t have a huge budget and a big team dedicated to marketing. That doesn’t mean however that they can’t market effectively and reach more customers. There are many things they can do to attract and get potential customers to buy their products and services.
The Key is to recognize that marketing is everything that helps a business get customers. It’s not just advertising and promotions that do the job, but also things such the line of customers outside a business that might lead passersby to want to come in and see what the buzz is all about.
Today I want to share with you how you can market a small business without having a big budget and a team a large team.
Use Price as a Tool to Drive Traffic
There are many things you can do with how you decide to price certain products and services that can help you get people’s attention. For this strategy we are going to want to pick something that we can set at a price that generates demand or conversation.
The demand part is obvious, because if your strategy works its’ goal is to get potential customers to want come in and purchase your goods.
But also important is that even if many people don’t actually make a purchase at that price but it ends up creating attention and mentions for your business. Maybe you get some local news coverage that helps get your business mentioned in front of many people.
For example, if you own a coffee shop you can create a $25 cup of coffee. The coffee would have top ingredients, from the coffee beans to any creamer you use. But you are not charging $25 just for the cup of coffee.
You establish a small section that you is separate from the rest of the shop. You can put a chair there that reclines or some other things such as a foot stool, those little pillows that your put around your neck to help the customer relax and get comfortable. Maybe you even offer their choice of cookies or chocolate.
The goal is to establish a place where a person can come and get some peace and relaxation for a period of time. You want to create something that is above and beyond the normal experience when it comes to getting a cup of a coffee.
You want to make it maybe like 30 minutes so that it is not too long for you as you want other customers coming in as well, but that is also worth the price and that the time is not too short for the customer.
Reduce the Price of Your Product to Generate Buzz
Another strategy you can employ with price is to go in the opposite direction and greatly reduce the cost of one of the things you offer. You want the reduced priced item to be something that doesn’t cost too much and can used to increase the number of customers coming into your establishment.
For example, if you have a quick service restaurant that offers fries. You can offer an order of fries for $.50. If you want to can do this for a limited time as a way to increase the number of people coming in.
Existing customers might stop in more frequently, and people who have never been to your restaurant before might be motivated to come in by the low price. This strategy might really generate buzz especially if you are located near maybe say a high school, college, or somewhere with high foot traffic.
I know $.50 is cheap and its hard to make money off of an item when you are selling it for so cheap. The thing to remember is that the goal is to get people excited, interested, and hopefully motivated to come to your restaurant.
Think about it, what if you heard that a local restaurant was offering $.05 (yes 5 cents) fries? That might be news that gets your attention and causes you to share with others.
As a small business you can be creative in how you try to attract potential customers and get attention for your establishment. You don’t have to be limited by a lack of a big budget or large marketing department.
As you can see something as simple as the price of a product or service can help you reach people. Let us know if you have any other ideas that can be used to get your business out there.
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