6 low-cost marketing ideas for your brewery
Many businesses are struggling with decreased revenues, fewer customers and increased costs. But, this does not mean you should stop marketing simply because your marketing budget has shrunk. There is a lot you can do to grow your business —even during a pandemic. Try these inexpensive marketing tactics to get you started.
No. 1 — Develop a focused marketing strategy
Marketing is the lifeline that helps your small business to reach and connect with your target audience. And, it is ultimately the driving factor in long-term growth. For your business to grow, it must be seen. But, you cannot market your business effectively without a strong marketing plan. You cannot fire blindly and hope for the best. Unfortunately, most small businesses make that mistake.
The result: You will end up spending lots of money and get little value for what you spent. You need a marketing plan that lays out your goals and a clear strategy.
And, if you are just starting a business, this is the perfect time to build your marketing plan. In fact, as you write a business plan, your marketing strategy will be one of the core topics you will research and include in your plan.
If you already have an established business but struggling to grow it, this is your chance to put your business back on a strong path to success with low-cost marketing tactics that can be executed on a shoestring budget.
A strong marketing strategy should:
- Build on your company’s brand identity by answering the “who” and “what” questions of your business.
- Think holistically to engage both new and existing customers.
- Establish a digital presence and prioritize a professionally designed website, blog, and social media presence.
- Create high-quality content that is useful, relevant, and actionable.
- Generate and convert new leads consistently.
No. 2 — Create a company blog
If your company does not have a blog, you are missing out on leads, sales and other valuable benefits.
When planned well, blogging can:
Boost SEO: Search engines gravitate toward fresh and valuable content.
Drive traffic to your website: This traffic then turns into leads and new customers.
Establish authority: Your company’s expertise positions you as subject matter experts.
Connect you to clients: Blogging gives you a space to connect with seasoned, new, and potential customers all at once.
You can launch a blog for your business with very little money. And, it is relatively simple to do. You will need to decide on a name, a blog design, and the best platform to host your blog. Then write about what you know best.
Your content must be high-quality
Strong blog content will build trust, brand awareness, and convert leads to customers. Weak content only takes slightly less time to create but will yield none of the benefits.
Aim for your content to be:
- Relevant: By focusing content on brands, projects, services, or needs that relate to your business, you will yield maximum results.
- Valuable: Your content is valuable when it teaches its audience how to do something, helps them to make a decision or fixes a problem. Such content will position you as a subject matter authority and inspire loyalty to your brand.
- Consistent: Prospects will show up when you are consistent. If you show up consistently, they will too.
No. 3 — Capture and hold attention with video
Video marketing is not new. Marketers have used video successfully on blogs, websites and social media for years. What has changed, however, is how important video has become. Viewers today consume video content for longer periods of time than other forms of online marketing.
And, there are ways to create great video at a reasonable cost. Here are three tips to help you produce effective video content without breaking the bank:
- Go live: Use Facebook and Instagram live feeds to share videos using your webcam or smartphone. Viewers can immediately like and share your content, driving immediate traffic to you. Be sure to save, though, or you won’t reap the long-term benefits!
- Be the teacher: Position yourself as a subject matter expert by offering live webinars. Save the webinars and promote them via social media or as gated lead generation content that you can deliver via email.
- Keep it short: You are passionate about your content, we know. Keeping your videos short is the best strategy. There are varying studies over how long a marketing video should be, but the consensus is that engagement starts to lessen around the two-minute mark.
No. 4 — Engage in social media
It is estimated that there are 3.8 billion active social media users, which is quite an evolution from the early 2000s when social networks first took off. Social media marketing is a cost-effective way to harness all the social media buzz into quantifiable marketing leads. This methodology works because it meets your customers where they are at—a move that pays off big.
Invest your time in the right platform
The question is never if you should do marketing with social media, but instead, which platforms make the most sense for your business.
After all, social media platforms are not created equal. What works for a millennial-centric art studio may not be effective for a real estate firm. To leverage social media effectively, you should develop a social media marketing plan.
Here’s how you can do that:
- Set goals: set social marketing goals that make sense for your business.
Know your customer: Which platforms are they on? What times are they most active? What type of social influencing is most effective?
Research your competition: Determine which social networks their customers are on, and the type of content that appeals to those customers.
Set-up: Register and set up your social media platforms.
Audit: Consistently audit what is working and what is not. (This is where those metrics in the illustration above come in handy.)
No. 5 — Invest in a professional website design
Today, consumers expect an interactive, well-designed, easy-to-navigate website experience. A custom business website can do more for your business’ online marketing than any other digital marketing strategy.
Consider these important statistics:
- 94% of first impressions on your website are design-related.
- A recent Stanford report found that 75% of people judge the success of a business based on how their website looks.
- 38% of users will stop engaging in a website if the layout or content is not attractive.
Setting up your website can seem daunting; but, it is not as hard as you might think. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of good website design. With that in mind, even if your business is complex, your website design should not be. Professional web design is worth the cost—and it is less than you think. Most business owners worry about the cost of website design.
But, take a deep breath—you can afford to have an on-brand, revenue-generating website regardless of your budget. Custom website design does not have to cost tens of thousands of dollars. There are free, cheap, affordable, and expensive options. Take a look at this guide to understand how much website design should cost and see the many options available to you.
Your website is one of your most valuable marketing tools. It continues working for your business even when you’re sleeping. So, make it the priority it deserves.
No. 6 — Get involved in your community
It does not take a massive marketing budget to communicate with your local community. But it can have a massive payout.
Community involvement can:
- Increase brand recognition.
- Boost your brand reputation.
- Help you learn more about your client base.
- How can you introduce your business to your community?
- Host an informational event: Block party anyone? Host an event to introduce yourself and what you offer to your community.
- Take on speaking engagements: Share your expertise with the community. Your knowledge can benefit them and position you as a subject matter expert.
Apply for local business awards: Business awards are a great way to build brand awareness and credibility.
Give back: What can your business do for the community, which also can generate positive PR buzz?
Marketing on a budget takes effort, ingenuity, and constant testing to see what “sticks.” Start with these 6 budget-friendly marketing ideas.
Ashlee Brayfield is a Customer Support Specialist at crowdspring, one of the world’s leading marketplaces for crowdsourced logo design, web design, graphic design, product design, and company naming services. She helps entrepreneurs, small businesses and agencies with branding, design, and naming, and regularly writes about entrepreneurship, small business, and design on crowdspring’s award-winning small business blog.