Leading marketing expert LOJO Marketing shares its tips on how small businesses and solo entrepreneurs can use the digital platform to their advantage even with a limited budget.
Contrary to popular belief, your marketing budget has nothing to do with your success. With careful planning, market research, and creativity, bootstrap digital marketing techniques can help you reach more customers, boost your brand, and ultimately, increase your sales in today’s fiercely competitive market.
Leading marketing expert LOJO Marketing shares its tips on how small businesses and solo entrepreneurs can use the digital platform to their advantage even with a limited budget.
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Use Social Media Platforms “Correctly”
Even if you don’t have a budget for Facebook Ads and other paid social media ads, you can still take advantage of these platforms that offer free features that specifically benefit local businesses. For instance, Facebook and Instagram have geo-tagging that allows users and brands to tag photos, videos, and posts to location-specific information.
However, being present on social media platforms alone is not enough to bring you success. With the new norm that has forced almost all businesses to shift online, it has now become trickier to get the consumers’ attention.
To stand out from the competition, make sure that your social media profile–for instance, Facebook Page–should promote genuine engagement with people.
- Post highly curated content that reflects your followers' lifestyle, demographics, pain points, and online activities.
- Install apps that promote user experience and engagement--e.g., polls, e-commerce, blog feeds, etc.
- Your social media profile or account should have complete information that includes your location, contact details, products and services (together with the most recent prices), and anything useful to your followers.
Learn More About Your Target Market
Don’t assume that you know all about your target market. To give you an example, a few years ago, a popular beverage company conducted a survey and found that the vast majority of the customers who bought their veggie juice were not health buffs but people who were simply pressed for time to make a healthy dinner.
To identify your target market, look at your current customer base, your competition’s clients, and the pain point that your product or service is trying to solve.
Once you identify your target customers, creating a digital marketing strategy that speaks their “language” (i.e., based on their search queries or keywords and their online activities such as likes and comments) becomes easier. You can also save time and money because you only target people who are the most likely to turn into actual buyers.
Go Where Your Potential Customers Hangout
For example, if you’re a local garden supplier, your best bet is to find Facebook Groups of garden enthusiasts from the local community and other nearby areas. However, make sure that you only post relevant and interesting content and stay clear of blatant self-promotion, which is typically frowned upon by people.
A good rule of thumb is to post content that can help members solve their problems. With this technique, you can build trust between you and your potential customers and position yourself as a reputable and reliable source of information.
Take Care Of Your Existing Customer Base
Surveys have shown that marketing to new customers on average costs five times more than keeping the existing ones happy. Despite these findings, a study conducted by Bain & Company has revealed that up to 80% of customers who described themselves satisfied did not go back to do business with the same company.
The reason why “repeat business” did not occur may surprise you: The companies simply failed to nurture the connection.
Loyalty and long-term customer satisfaction are only possible if you nurture your connection with existing customers who will respond better if you communicate gratitude and send them a personalized message.
Blatant selling no longer works for your existing customers because they have already tested your product or service. A better approach is to make a genuine connection, which should include listening to their feedback.
Respond To Positive And Negative Feedback
Social media engagement means you have to respond to feedback and recommendations from users, including those who share their not-so-stellar experience.
When you respond and listen to negative feedback, you can accomplish several things. First, you might be able to “regain” the customers’ trust; second, you can demonstrate to everyone that you value and respect their views; and lastly, you can improve your product or service based on the criticism.
Use Short Videos To Give Users Quick But Helpful Information
In recent years, videos have accounted for 80-82% of all Internet traffic worldwide, with social apps like Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram, and Snapchat having the lion’s share.
You don’t need fancy video productions to catch the attention of potential customers. Just make sure that instead of blatantly self-promoting your product, post how-to and demo videos, product reviews, animated videos, educational videos, podcast videos, and webinar videos.
When you provide people with valuable information, which is a subtle marketing technique, you position yourself as a reputable brand that aims to help customers instead of a company that shoves ads down their throat.
If you want higher engagement, a good rule of thumb is to keep your video between 2-5 minutes short.
Final Thought About Bootstrapping Digital Marketing Techniques for Small Businesses and Solo Entrepreneurs
Most marketing pundits suggest that you should spend at least 5% of your total revenue on marketing if you want to maintain your current position, but if you’re anticipating growth, you should allocate up to 10%. While this is the ideal practice, not every small business and solo entrepreneur has enough budget for paid ads and sponsored content.
Fortunately, the aforementioned digital marketing tips are perfect for bootstrapping entrepreneurs who want to remain competitive amidst this new norm.
If you want to learn more about digital marketing techniques for small businesses, side hustlers, and solo entrepreneurs, contact us at (916) 303-4080 or schedule a free consultation by clicking here.
