Yesterday’s post touched on low cost marketing tactics to extend your budget (and your marketing campaign). Here are five more ways to stretch your marketing budget, build partnerships, extend your business’s reach, and earn more money.
1) Partner with a complementary business.
I’m a copywriter and a small business marketer, but I have relationships with graphic designers, web developers, and video producers that allow me to offer additional services.
Plus, we can refer business to each other. If you specialize in exhibit design, partner with a video producer. Both of you focus on trade shows and events, but you don’t compete.
2) Content marketing. This is the hot “latest” buzzword now, but it’s not really new. Writing on your own site is important, but you need to expand your reach and get in front of more potential clients.
Have guest posts on your blog, or guest articles in your newsletter. Approach other bloggers and request a guest post (make sure your article is appropriate and relevant to the topic of the blog).
Post answers to common client questions on social media, Google+, and don’t forget industry blogs and forums. Don’t just post your own material, share others’ posts too. If you see a question you can answer, do that in the comments. It often encourages people to follow your account, building your following and extending your reach.
3) Ask permission, even if you don’t have to. When I started my newsletter, I put together a free marketing guide with expert advice from business and marketing experts. They had given permission to reprint the articles (with attribution), but I thought it was polite to contact them and let them know.
Several offered to promote the newsletter and the guide in their own, established newsletters, which got mine off to a good start!
4) Share your ideas. Got more ideas than you can execute? Partner with someone else. Feed them the ideas, let them implement them, and share the income. Just make sure you set out the terms of the agreement clearly, on paper, and in advance.
5) Create a referral network page. Add your partners’ logos to your Web site, or set up a special web page with information about their services. Use the page to refer business to each other, and to extend your reach. With more services (through your partners) you’ll look bigger and can get more business.