As an entrepreneur and business owner, you are always looking for ways to save money. It is especially true when considering how you intend to grow your business. Unfortunately, when COVID-19 happened, many small businesses suffered, and many even went under.
But those who were able to survive the pandemic are now looking for affordable ways to continue the momentum of their business. Here are five affordable ways to grow your business, so you don’t have to break the bank.
Cost-Effective Ways To Grow Physical Space
Renting out an office space or warehouse to coincide with the growth of your business can be extremely expensive. The monthly costs will add up, taking away from the revenue your business could be making. It is why, since the pandemic, many companies have allowed more opportunities to work from home.
While there is a safety factor, they also saw how they could cut financial costs. For example, growing the physical space for your office, workshop, or manufacturing and distribution centres can be done easily by using steel building kits at a fraction of the cost.
Using these kits, you can easily personalize the space to fit your company’s specific needs. It’s a great alternative for auto shops, commercial warehouse space, and they even have options for homeowners looking to build a house on a budget.
Content Marketing Is Free
As technology advances, so should your business. As a result, search engine optimization (SEO) has become an essential element for business. SEO is where your company’s website lands in the search results.
For example, if you are a yoga studio in San Francisco, you want to make sure that your business is found on the first page of results when someone is looking for a yoga studio in the area.
That being said, there is a significant amount of competition. Content marketing is a great way to help boost your SEO, build your social media audience, and start spreading the news about your business online. The best part is that if you are able and willing to put in the time, content marketing is completely free.
Ask for Referrals
Many business owners fail to use their current audience and customer base to help them find other potential new clients. Referrals are affordable to build your business because they are completely free.
You can do this in several different ways. Offering an incentive through a referral program has become a popular means of building a client base. You ask your current clients to invite their friends to partake in your product or service, and, in return, you provide them with a discount the next time they make a purchase.
Other ways could be as simple as sending out an email to ask for reviews online. You would be surprised at how many people make decisions based on reviews. Or, if you are a small business, building one-on-one relationships with your clients can allow you to ask them to refer their friends and family.
Run a Free Online Class or Course
People are coming to you because they need something missing in their lives. It could be in the form of a product or service. For example, offering a free online class or course is a great way to build your email list or social media following.
Say, for instance, you are a business coach. Your goal is to help other entrepreneurs flourish in their businesses. Offering a free online class giving a small introduction to the vast possibilities your services offer is a great teaser for new clients.
All you need is a means of recording on your mobile device and the time to create it. Once your video is pre-recorded, you can set up an email funnel that automatically puts the people who signed up for the course into rotation. The end goal is that these “students” will turn into paying customers.
Giving away something for free has worked for hundreds of thousands of business owners worldwide. Besides, who doesn’t love getting something for free?
Final Thoughts:
The most important thing to remember is to focus on the customer. There are affordable, if not free, ways to provide them with what they need. So you have to get creative.
Utilize free content, ask for referrals, and provide your business with the physical space it needs to make your business grow. In the end, you will realize catering to your customers’ needs will, in turn, make your business prosper.
