6 Ways to Promote your Business at a Very Very Low Cost in India!
There can be more than just 6 ways of promoting your business. All you have to do is to think out of the box and be creative.
Some of the tactics mentioned above will yield results instantly and some of them might take it weeks of months before you start seeing results.
If you don’t have big bucks to spend on marketing, you have to invest your time to promote your business. I’ve seen lot of businesses that succeeded with ZERO marketing budget.
#1 — Optimize Your Website for Search Engines
What is the first thing that people do when they are planning to buy something? Well, they search for that product or service on Google. First they try to collect as much information as they can about the product and then they search for vendors who sell that product. So, if your website is not appearing in Google search, that means you virtually do not exist.
How can we fix this? Easy way to is to hire someone who can optimize your website for search engine but even in that case you need to be aware of the process, otherwise you might end up getting penalized by Google. It’s not very difficult to learn these techniques.
#2 — List Your Products in Business Directories
Buyers search for vendors in popular business directories. If you sell B2B products, add a free listing on IndiaMart or Trade India. These are popular business to business directories.
If you sell directly to customers, list free on Just Dial, Ask Me and Get It. These services offer mobile apps and attract huge traffic. You can list services as well on these sites for free.
#3 — List On Google My Business
Google is making search personal and now displays results that are tailored for your location. For example, if you search for a Pizza Hut or Dominos or even Big Bazaar, it will show you the one in your city with a map. So, it has almost become mandatory for a business to get listed on Google Local.
Google has made it easy to add & manage your location on map. You can also manage your Google Plus profile from the same place. Just head over to Google My Business and claim your listing. If you don’t have a physical shop, you can even add your office location and give details about your business.
#4 — Use The Power Of Social Media
We all know how our PM Modi leveraged the power of social media to win Lok Sabha polls in 2014. New York Times even called him social media politician and Business Todays wrote a case study on his social media strategies.
To start with, you should create profiles on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. This will not only help you get more customers but you can engage them and get quality feedback from them about your products or services.
#5 — Showcase Your Product on YouTube
Did you know that over 4 billion videos are played on YouTube daily? This number is growing every passing day. So, it makes a whole lot of sense to upload a video about your product or service right away! Best part is, this video will appear in search results as well giving your product more visibility.
How to get started? First decide what you are going to create. For products, a short 2 minute demo will work great and in case of service, you can record a testimonial by a client and upload it. YouTube offers nice tools to edit the uploaded video. For example, you can add narration or music, trim video and do much more.
#6 — Use WhatsApp Marketing
WhatsApp is very very popular in India. So, if you can come up with a very good deal, then you can get good number of buyers at a very low cost.
Now the big question — Will offering heavy discounts affect my brand? Well, every big brand out there is offering discounts in the name of Diwali offer, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and every small event you never cared about before.
Conclusion:
Every business owner wants to put their products or services in front of their potential customers. However, most of the traditional ways cost money and not everyone can buy TV ADs when they are just starting up the business. Don’t worry as it’s still possible to successfully promote your business without spending a lot of money.
So to prove my point, I’m putting up together a list of 6 ways to promote your business. These marketing ideas would not cost you money but require one-time investment of your time.