Trying to grow your business can take a lot of your energy and you don’t always get the immediate results you’re looking for. It can be frustrating to spend a lot of effort without seeing your customer base grow that much. You might wonder if there are ways to grow your business without spending all of your company’s capital on it. If you’re willing to think outside the box you’ll find that there are many possibilities to help you grow your business, completely free of cost.
1: Advertise smartly
Advertising can be as cheap or as expensive as you want it to be. The most expensive advertising methods aren’t always the most effective. For example, you might have a car or truck that you can use as a driving billboard. The more miles you make, the more people will learn about your company.
The story of Richard Roy is a great example of this method’s effectiveness. He’s the owner of a company called Dr. Pooper Scooper and is specialized in the removal of dog waste. He’s turned his truck into an oversized Dalmatian with his company name and contact information clearly visible. Everyone who’s seen his truck passing on the streets will think of him when they need to have some dog waste removed.
2: Advertise to your existing customers
Finding new customers is great but advertising to people that already like your products, can be much more effective. Your existing customers will be easier to sell to than someone who isn’t yet familiar with your company.
A good way to advertise to your existing customers is to offer them a two for the price of one type of promotion. They already love your products so they’re not going to waste an opportunity like this.
3: Give products away for FREE
People enjoy free products more than anything. Whatever your company is selling, you’ll make a lot of people happy by giving some of it away for free. This will get the word out about your company’s products and builds relationships.
If your company provides a service, it will only cost you a bit of time when you give it away for free. In this case you could also offer free consultation meetings to show what you can do for your clients.
When your company produces tangible products you could donate them to popular events that take place in your neighborhood, which improves brand recognition. You can also start a promotion in which you give away prizes to people sharing your content on social media.
At accurants, we give our entire software FREE to all non-profits/not for profit/Non-Governmental Organizations as part of our obligation to give back to the community.
4: Get listed on Google Local
People generally don’t want to travel a long distance to get that product they’re looking for. They’ll just type the name of the product into Google and visit the first nearby shop that pops up. It doesn’t cost you anything to make your company come up first in local online searches like this.
By going to the Google My Business page, you can list your company with all of its contact information for free. It’s the best way to reach the customers in your neighborhood. If you don’t grab this opportunity your competitors will.
5: Use FREE online tools
The amount of available online tools that can help your company is astonishing. Many of them can be used totally free of charge. Although paid versions of programs offer a lot more functionality, free programs can definitely take your company in the right direction.
Social media channels are free for you to post & interact with your prospects & customers. Most websites publish blog articles and also send out newsletters for free that contain an amazing amount of beneficial and actionable information.
accurants is a complete small business management software suite that will empower you to run your entire business. We give our software for FREE for 30-days (try accurants free for 30 days). During this period you could use all features – Invoicing, Time Tracking, Project Management, Expense Tracking, Mileage Log, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Accounting, and Taxes without any restrictions.
There are a plethora of tools available for FREE to help you grow your small businesses. Given the choices, it will be very helpful to know which tools are best for you. Please do check out our blog and social media channels as we post many articles on how to grow your business for FREE.
Photo Credits: Grow / Photo by Caleb Roenigk / CC BY