Growing and conducting a business can be fully online nowadays. This has brought about a plethora of ways for business owners to grow their businesses. With the pandemic forever impacting the ways of how businesses operate, here are our top 8 low-cost, high-value strategies on how to grow your business online.
Offering a Loyalty Program
This strategy has been around since before the internet. You’ve got banks incentivising rates, groceries offering coupons, and even magazines printing out vouchers. Today, client retention programs can also be implemented virtually.
Virtual vouchers and exclusive codes are the new norms for brands and influencers. There are also tiered programs and a points-based approach for rewarding loyal customers. Sending gifts to high-value clients is also a great way to show the market how beneficial it is to build a relationship with your brand.
Loyalty programs normally require customers to sign up, which is also a great way to introduce them into your email marketing funnel and other programs.
It is also worth mentioning that existing customers are 60-70% more likely to purchase than new ones. Those in loyalty programs also show a 62% increase in their likelihood of spending on the same brand.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing involves participating in making social media a rewarding experience for its users. It’s highly effective for raising brand awareness, introducing new products, running promotions, and engaging with customers and leads.
Responding to complaints, for example, can lead to a 25% increase in customer advocacy. That’s a simple task that generates free marketing for your business.
What’s great about social media is that organic growth strategies exist and still work today. It’s an environment that allows businesses to easily find customers who are likely to fit their customer profile.
Organic growth social media can be approached by regularly posting updates, responding to inquiries and complaints, and using the right hashtags and keywords to be easily found by the right people.
There are even communities and groups your brand can join to directly interact with a group of users who have similar interests. Done effectively, a few minutes per day connecting with the right groups of people could turn into a steady stream of customers.
Lastly, creating original, informative, and entertaining content in conjunction with knowing the algorithms can be a cheap way to reach new people and nurture them to purchase as well.
Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads allows users to customise their campaigns according to a budget. You can utilise this for your business by spending on a few attempts to reach different audiences. Find out what works, and then increase your budget.
If you have a limited budget, Facebook Ads allows you to still run a campaign. What’s better is that you can use this budgeting technique even as your company and budget grow.
You can reach new prospects with a wide-target ad, or nurture current followers with a targeted campaign. You can also set a budget for boosting highly valuable content every now and then.
Facebook Ads does come with a cost, but it also includes smart features to help you target the right audience easily. Plus, you can start with a very small budget, unlike other ad platforms. You can start with a budget as low as $20 for a boosted post. Done right, you could be enjoying effects like increasing offline sales, and 9x ROI on your ads, or even a huge growth in your page’s followers.
Google My Business Optimization
Google My Business is a completely free service from Google that helps businesses get discovered more easily on Search. It comes with key features such as real-time review hosting, SEO ranking, and even a free website for business.
What’s great about Google My Business is that it’s absolutely free, yet very powerful. It allows businesses to claim their location on Maps, provide all available contact information, and even present its services and products in full detail. These details help customers get in touch or even make a purchase. Reviews also affect purchase decisions.
Overall, claiming your business on Google means more visibility and traffic to your physical store or website. Reviews help customers on their journey to your sales funnel, and insights help you improve your optimization. Did we mention it’s absolutely free?
Video Marketing
As the effectiveness of video marketing rises, producing videos is also becoming easier. With free editing tools, a mobile phone, and a message that matters, one can make a compelling video that converts viewers into customers.
73% of consumers say social media videos influence their decision-making process over a purchase. Videos are also reported to be the most preferred content type by customers. This makes it an essential device for businesses nowadays.
However, producing videos doesn’t have to stretch your budget too far. You can drive engagement and produce videos at the same time by encouraging your customers to create videos with you and for you. User-generated content is another smart way of tackling video marketing. Try it and you could be one of the video marketers who annually get 66% more qualified leads.
Email Marketing
Email marketing seems outdated but is actually very much alive. With free plans on platforms like Mailchimp, Sendinblue, and Moosend, this is a channel that you should explore if you haven’t yet.
Recent reports show that every $1 spent on email marketing generates $42, revealing a 4200% ROI. If that’s not impressive enough, find out more from the 4 out of 5 marketers who would rather lose social media than email marketing.
Sending a healthy amount of valuable emails could become your business’s way of duplicating its revenue. Just spend some time writing to your customers earnestly, and they could reward you with so much.
Conducting Market Research
Conducting market research only costs time, and it doesn’t have to be a lot. It could be as simple as subscribing to a newsletter or following an industry expert. Essentially, following sources of current affairs in your industry.
You can also spend some time researching your competitors, and concepts in other industries you could adapt.
Doing these helps you be on top of updates regarding your industry. You could end up being the first to effectively approach an emerging market, create the next viral ad, or even secure the next big innovation in your industry.
Hiring Virtual Assistants
Virtual assistants are professionals who execute tasks and projects for businesses remotely. Their services are used by companies both big and small.
Offloading jobs to virtual assistants is a popular cost-efficient way to get things done. You’ll find a lot who work for a much lower rate than a local hire. They also offer all sorts of services like admin assistance, graphic design, social media marketing, copywriting, etc. If you have a job that can be done remotely, there’s probably a virtual assistant who can do it.
If you’re curious about delegating tasks to remote workers, check out this guide on hiring and training virtual assistants!
Bottom-Line
These techniques can help you grow your business without stretching yourself or your budget too thin. Notice how it’s about leveraging current technological advancements and services to increase productivity in different aspects of a business. That’s the concept you should keep in mind as you try any or all of these strategies. Keep your costs low by finding services and features that simplify complicated tasks for a low price or for free.
