How to Survive as a Little Fish in a Big Pond

How to Survive as a Little Fish in a Big Pond

When it comes to being a small business in a large industry, it can sometimes be a real struggle to keep up with your competitors, especially when it comes to your marketing budget. The first thing you need to do is to put your advertising on hold and follow these top tips that we have put together to help you be more creative with your marketing budget. The great thing about being a small business is that you can be flexible, so use that to your advantage and see which top tips could work for you:

• Use social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to direct traffic through to your website. By sharing links to blog posts that are on your website, product pages on your website and free downloads that can be downloaded from your website, you will increase the activity on your social media pages whilst, at the same time, increasing the traffic to your website. These visitors can very easily turn into customers for your business if you have something that is of interest to them.
• Maybe you have an event coming up? You could pay to advertise it in the local paper or you could save money and make an event page on Facebook, as well as uploading your event on your website, on Gumtree and Eventbrite – all of which can be used for free and will increase the awareness of your brand and your event.
• Why not grow your brand awareness on Facebook with a like and share competition? You can offer a free service, product or even a box of chocolate or bunch of flowers for people that like and share your Facebook page. A winner can then be chosen at random. You just need to make sure you keep the new fans interested with engaging posts.
• Keep your social media profiles up to date. This doesn’t mean spending every minute of every day on your social media pages; instead, look for a free social media scheduling tool like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck, which will allow you to schedule posts to your social media platforms in advance to save you time that can be spent elsewhere.
• Have a look at free email newsletter programs, like Mailchimp, where you can send newsletters to your contacts for free. You can even write a few months’ worth of emails now and schedule them to be sent at a later date.
• Utilise your existing technology. You can use your business telephone system to advertise to callers, for example. Whether you record messages for your automated attendant or use advertising on hold, it’s a great way to inform callers about offers or services they may be interested in. You could also take the opportunity to direct callers to your website, where they will then be exposed to your full range of services. They may find that you offer services of interest to them that they weren’t aware you offered.

When you’re a small business, you may feel like a small fish in a big pond, but you are also really flexible compared to larger organisations. This means that you can try a greater range of marketing methods with a lower marketing budget, so get experimenting!

At Midland Networks, we are proud to help SMEs nurture their business. We have a wealth of experience in this area and are always happy to offer advice and support. We also offer a great range of affordable solutions, many with flexible contracts and pricing plans, to help your small business budget go further, whilst also providing innovative solutions aimed to help you grow your business. Contact us today for more information.