Business Buzz - Making You Famous

We get it, you’re just starting up and every penny counts, but don’t let that be the reason your small budding entrepreneurial venture skimps on marketing. While there are some things that can only be reached through a larger budget, you can still get big results for your business even with a small budget. You’ve just got to be more focused and precise with your efforts because mistakes can be costly.

To help you get started, here are seven of our top suggestions for getting the best results with a small marketing budget. Give them a try and see what works for you!

• Refresh your messaging– If you’ve been trying to get some media attention for a while and nothing is working, try a different angle. Give your messaging a little freshening up and remember to sell your story. Journalists don’t want to write an ad for your company, give them something to work with. They want to know the “why’s” and “how’s” of your company story and how it effects the surrounding community. Stories are the bread and butter for journalists. And don’t forget to include infographics and fun trends in your messaging. For example, you could have built a story around national Pancake Day this week.
• Get creative- Being creative and getting some more localized attention is a great way to start. Donate to your community: skills and expertise, money, and time are all a great investment. Helping your community and other businesses out not only will help get you some local media attention but can build mutually beneficial relationships, which leads to our next point.
• Use social media for its intended purpose- building relationships – Don’t use social media as merely an advertising platform, it’s so much more. It’s a place where you can help establish yourself as an expert and build relationships. Social media is a great place to connect online with like-minded individuals and business that can lead to physical connections and partnerships. Always remember the social part of social media.
• Connect with the media in a different way- Reporters get thousands of email and phone pitches every day so you’ve got to find a way to make yours stand out. Connecting with media in a different way than most may help you be remembered and get your story in the news. Try connecting with Reporters on social media such as Twitter (only if they are ok with it) or give HARO (Help A Reporter Out) a try. You might even want to find reporters at publications you’d like be covered in and introduce yourself early on and ask their permission to send them story ideas in the future. Build a relationship so when you do have news to share, you already have an interested party.
• Monitor yourself- Online reputation management is a big deal in today’s online, instantaneous world. Even if you’re not watching your online reputation, you can bet your customers are. We suggest at the minimum setting up Google Alerts for yourself and your competitors. If you have the budget, a good management team can be invaluable. Ask us how we can help.
• Position yourself as an expert- Actively look for ways that you can establish yourself as an expert. Consistently generating top quality content, guest blog posting and contributing to a column are all good ways to help set yourself up as an expert and increase your SEO value.
• Do good: Do good and then talk about it. Philanthropic enterprises always have news value so if you are already doing good, why not let it work in your favor? We don’t suggest doing good purely for the sake of promotion, because then it will seem insincere and people will be able to tell what your real motives are. The green movement is a big deal currently, so that’s a good place to start. Or simply follow your passions and see where they take you.

Budding entrepreneurs have enough to worry about without having to constantly stress about their marketing and lack of a budget. But don’t let low funds be an excuse for poor marketing. Follow these suggestions to help get some big results even with your small budget.