All that you need to know about making your small business BIG for FREE This free e-book guides you on how to make a small business owned by you, enter the BIG LEAGUE with a few simple steps that would not cost you more than your lunch.
Foreword Ever since I entered the world of business and marketing, I have mostly been hearing about BIG names which spend BIG money on making their logos visible and their jingles ring in your ears. As a small business owner it becomes literally impossible to even think about such BIG investments. You would rather spend the money on improving your infrastructure and buying a few good assets. But, in a world where marketing makes or breaks a product/service, how can a small business owner get all that he needs at the cost of a lunch. In this book I would be sharing some ideas that helped me gain some expertise and use it for my own business. Hope you will find them useful. CHEERS...!! 2
Table of Contents Get a website Get a blog Enter the world of social media Participate in local trade fairs Float your business cards through a business network Make contacts, keep them Get to distribute samples/free stuff Organize a competition/event Keep a check on competition Don t forget your old friends Be a part of online communities Join a social cause 3
All the steps and the chapters mentioned below can be used in an integrated manner or individually, as the user desires. The effect would anyways be awesome. It would really depend on the amount of time you can devote online and the kind of business that you do. Get a Website The first thing that you have to do is get a website. The virtual world is really big and accommodating. Anything and everything becomes possible once you learn how to master the online world. The best thing about owning a website is that you can upload text, images and videos. You can provide links and badges to your other online web pages like a Facebook fan page or a Twitter account. We will discuss about these later. A website can be the best way in which you can make an audience relate to you and know about you. Now, as a small business one of the most important questions in view is that though owning a website gives you immense 4
benefits, should you really go for it? Is it really worthwhile to register a domain name and upload a world of content on your website? As a small business owner, how would you be able to track your visitors and quantitatively analyze if the website is really bringing in any benefits to you? In the precursor of this book, All You Need To Know as a Small Business Owner, we talked about the benefits of sticking to a budget. Yes, it will always work. No matter how much capital you put into your business, unless you have control over your finances, you are giving it all reasons to fall flat on its face. For example: it is useless for a local grocery store to set up a full fledged website on the internet, however, if you want to open an online shopping business of grocery items that provides home delivery facilities, this is the primary and possibly the only big thing that you need to do on the internet. Therefore it is always advisable to first check whether making a website will really be helpful or not. You are spending a part of your hard earned money here. 5
On a second note, if you find that it is really good to have a website and directing some online traffic there without spending all the money involved in the process, the internet will give you this solution as well. There are a number of websites that provide you free hosting of your website. You just have to type free website hosting in your search window and you get to a number of websites that allow you to create a free website for you, often with limited pages and content restrictions. You will get free templates, and a few premium ones on the payment of a minimal fee. Then there is a plethora of colors, themes and designs to choose from. Your very own customized website is ready, within a few minutes and without any charge. One thing however should be kept in mind that you don t get a simple website name like www.abc.com. If you are hosting your website through one of the free sites (for example xyz.com ), your URL would be www.abc.xyz.com. However, this must not really matter if you are a small business and don t have everyday updates, a huge number of employees and a wide range of products and services 6
that are to be displayed. It is not a matter of concern whether it is big or small, what is more important is that you are getting it all for FREE. Get a Blog For those who want their voices to be heard in a different way, blogging can give you the right tools to manage your views. A blog can be about anything. It can be about you, about your poems, your essays on current issues, your research, your company, your product, almost anything you can think about. So why do you need to create a blog? I would personally recommend a blog only to people who can post regularly or who have a product/service that can be regularly blogged about. A blog is a very dynamic structure. It is not something that can be made once and left static or untouched thereafter. Blogging is about posting your thoughts/views on a particular subject at a time. For example, you are a software engineer who has created a certain app for an 7
android phone. You can blog about this and blog about every single creation after this. This is how blogging normally goes. Blogs are free to make and to use. A good traffic on your blog can even help you earn some money. Some popular blogging sites are: www.wordpress.com www.blogger.com So if you have a writer hidden inside you, go start blogging. Enter the world of social media Believe it or not, but social media networking is the new marketing tool of the internet and the best thing is that it is FREE. The best of the best are Facebook, Twitter and Google+. 1. You can create a Facebook page. You can create a page and start connecting with the people. You don t really need to have a separate personal account on Facebook. Though if you have one, you will have 8
some added advantage as you will be able to directly recommend people to like your page. The best thing about running a Facebook page is that you get to know the demographical data of the people who like your page. You get to know their age, gender and location so that you can modify your page and status messages according to your audience. You may also want to create a group on Facebook and add people whom you know and start sharing your ideas and discount schemes etc there. Trust me, it really gets this easy. 2. Having a Twitter account is another way to connect directly to your target audience. Twitter is a very popular micro blogging site where you condense you thoughts to 140 characters and share them with the world. If you create a twitter account and start following a few people who lie in your circle of interest, you are sure to find some other people who like your thoughts and views and might want to connect with you. There are various ways through one can master twitter for internet marketing. However, you should also bear in mind to regularly keep posting here as well. If you lag behind or leave 9
your account untouched for quite some time, you may make it stale and leave out on chances to meet likeminded people, marketing gurus and even potential consumers. 3. If you own a Google account, you can easily switch to using Google s very own social network Google+. Even if you don t own a Google account, all you have to do is simple sign up for one, and you automatically get a Google+ profile. This service provides you with circles. It is more like subscribing to the posts of other people. You can manage your friends, professional contacts etc in different circles. Moreover, the more G+ you get, the more popular you become, so don t forget to sync up with this service. Participate in local trade fairs The government and business community now are giving much attention to coming together. A local trade fair may give you the best opportunity to show off what you got. This gives you targeted audience gathered at one place, so you know that the people 10
who are coming there are the people who are interested in knowing about you, your service and probably buying it. Moreover, you get to meet a lot many people in the same business. This helps you build your network and also get some reputation for you in the market. This is the most sure shot way to get some real time marketing for your business. Even more beneficial thing is that you get to analyze your strengths and weaknesses as compared to your competitors in the market and also some good motivation to improve. However, these benefits do not come absolutely free, as you may have to pay a certain fee to book a stall. Still, the cost incurred is a mere nothing as compared to receivables. Float your business card through a business network The oldest method to let anyone know about you and your business is giving them a business card. This small piece of paper will tell the person enough information of who you are and conveys just the right information about you. 11
A business card typically includes your business name, a tag line (if you have any), your name, your telephone number(s), e-mail addresses, website URL and your location. Remember, a business card should not be loaded with unnecessary information. You don t have to write everything about you. A business card is a short introduction not an essay of your work. Always prefer a card which is plain and simple. Do not go for a fancy design or contrasting colors. Prefer to keep it to the point. What all can you do with your business cards? Simple, just float these cards around to your friends, relatives and people you know. Often people keep a bunch of cards to get some reference when they need. Your friends and relatives might come across someone who may need your professional help. Also, don t forget to float these cards to people who you meet in trade fairs I mentioned above and also to your clients so they may come back to you whenever they need you again. 12
Make contacts, keep them The one very important and useful thing that you need to know as a small business owner is that contacts are your golden coins. You need to understand that the more contacts you will make, the more chances are that you will meet people in your area of interest and potential consumers as well. You will get to meet people everywhere. This does not mean that you have to establish contact with every other person you meet. Here, you have to create a filter and decide which people are really important and who are actually going to help you further. For example, if you are a local grocery shop owner, you won t really be benefitted by giving your business card to a cousin who lives in another country and who works in an MNC. Also never forget to follow up with your contacts. If you have their phone numbers and e-mail addresses, you can regularly keep in touch by sending season greetings and wishing them important days. This 13
helps in maintaining the relations and also builds your credibility. Get to distribute samples, free stuff You must have heard about leading by example. Now it is time to do the same, with a little twist. Let people know about your product/service by sampling. For example, if you are in the publishing business, you may distribute a free sample to a few selected people. This would get you valuable feedback. And if your product is good enough, a good feedback will be very helpful for you to market the whole batch in real time. Like in our example of book publishing, you do not really need to send the whole book out. You can send a few chapters. However, in cases where the product cannot be distributed in small portions, like a medicine or something similar, it is better to send the whole product. 14
Organize a competition/event This is something that will cost you less and can make you immensely popular in a single step. However, it is not free nor will it cost you just one lunch, yet the cost can be lower than other methods of promotion. All you have to do is organize an event or a competition. For example, you run a small restaurant and want to increase the footfall of people in your eatery. Just advertise in a local newspaper or rather but a small handmade banner outside your premises that you are organizing a cooking competition in your restaurant the coming Sunday. The theme is xyz and the winning dish will get to feature in the menu of the restaurant along with the name of the cook. All set. Now you will definitely be spending a little amount if you advertize, but even putting up a banner outside the shop will do the trick. People will come, the dish is chosen and as the competition is being organized in your restaurant itself, you will earn 15
some instant money and will make customers for the future. In our example we saw exactly how simple it is to get BIG. Don t be disheartened if you don t get thousands of people waiting outside to get a look at what you are doing. If you can continue the event on a regular basis, you will certainly draw some crowd. Remember again, it is about quality and not quantity. Keep a check on competition You need to know what other people in the same trade are doing. Though it is not something that you should put all your effort in, but still it matters. In the next example, Mr. A is the owner of a bakery. There are 5 other bakeries in town. On Christmas, the rest of the bakeries are offering 20% discount on the latest series of cakes that they have come up with. These new cakes are of innovative flavors and are decorated in an all Christmas fashion. Will you lag behind in sales? 16
The answer is yes. Your competitors are offering something new and on a discounted price. Given a choice why would your customers choose your old cake designs and higher prices as compared to what they are getting by your competitors? Therefore, you have to be really alert in this case. Your prices have to be competitive, reasonable and your product should always be made and modified according to the taste and interest of the customers. Don t forget your old friends Your old friends and relatives are your best bet. They are really the people who will help you in bad times and in business times as well. It is really important that you let your friends know what you are doing and your motto behind it. As I told you earlier as well, floating your business cards and making business network is something that can be easily done with the help of your old friends. 17
Maybe you are a software developer who quit his job to set up an IT company. Don t forget to be in touch with some trustworthy friends who will help you in setting up the company and will also help you to get some business. And if your friends cannot provide you with all these material benefits, they are always there for the moral support. That is what they are for, that is what your family is for. A business will put a lot of pressure on your brain. The people around you play a very important role here, as they help you cope with the stress and move ahead. Be a part of online communities It is always great to join people. Being a part of online communities gives you an added edge to get the right information about your area of interest. The best thing about these communities is that they attract consumers, experts, sellers and other interested 18
parties alike and are more likely to discuss the right thing with you. You can not only ask questions, but you may also answer them and in turn increase your credibility. The more people know about you, the more are the chances of the recognition of your business. Now the question is how will you find such communities? It is very simple, you can check a website dedicated to such discussions, or can join various groups, pages and communities dedicated to the topic of your interest. For example, if you are a member of LinkedIn and run an IT firm, you can join any of the huge number of groups there and get valuable information. There you can also connect with like-minded people and may also be able to catch a good fish. It is all about communication. Join a social cause Now it is something really vague prima facie. Why do I need to join a social cause if I am an educational consultant? What has social work got to do with business? 19
Joining a social cause associates your business to a wide range of options that were otherwise inaccessible had you focused entirely on commercial purposes. In an example, if I am an educational consultant providing help to students for studying abroad and preparing them clear the IELTS, I would generally not think of some social service and would rather focus on my advertising and marketing chain during the peak time. In this situation I come across a friend who tells me that there must be many students who do not happen to read my advertisements. There must still be many who are willing to join the institute but would lack adequate financial resources. Again there must be students who want to go abroad and join the institute but do not have the right information of the procedure as a whole. In this case, I can either waste my money on heavy advertising, most of which goes a waste. Or I can opt to organize a merit scholarship test for all those who 20
want to go abroad and study. The first five students get a scholarship worth 30000 rupees and so on. This way I stand a greater chance to be noticed, to be talked about and also enhance my credibility amongst my target audience. Famous Last Words In the end it is apt to say that the more you open up, the more chances of you being recognized. The world is no more a simple economy. There are thousands of buyers and sellers, with products slightly different from each other. Therefore, it is really important to make your product and service stand out amongst them all. The question is how? Money makes the world go around. But when it comes to marketing, you have to be really economical. The first difference I read between advertising and publicity in school was that publicity comes free of cost and advertising needs to be paid for. So if you can use the publicity tool for free, why spend thousands on advertising. A carefully planned and 21
economical advertising plan combined with a well planned and rather aggressive form of publicity. You can apply these steps in real life. They will surely help. If you want to know further kindly send us a mail at mycontentlab@gmail.com You can follow me on twitter @mycontentlab and @nehajoychauhan or like our page facebook.com/ Have a great time networking your business!!! 22