There are many practical financial strategies available for boosting business on a budget. Throwing money at a problem is rarely the best solution. A budget allows a company to regulate its financial risks while testing the effectiveness of new campaigns. Once a campaign proves to be profitable, the decision of whether to scale up or not becomes more apparent.
Here are some budget-friendly yet game-changing business strategies for start-up businesses.
Get Customer Testimonials
They say self-praise is no praise. Testimonials are a simple yet powerful way to add credibility to your business and convert more prospects into customers. The effectiveness of a testimonial depends on how well it resonates with the consumer. It may be tempting to fool your audience with five-dollar testimonials, but in the end, generic testimonials rarely come across as genuine to the reader.
Deceiving others into buying your products or services through false or misleading customer testimonials is an offence that could leave you in legal trouble with a buyer or a fine from the government. Platforms with an audience interested in purchasing products or services similar to what you offer are a better alternative for collecting quality feedback and genuine reviews. Business directories like 411.ca present businesses in categories so that interested buyers can seek out the type of services they need most.
Registering for a free Google Business page and getting more Google Reviews will improve your business’s rank on search engines. Major platforms like Facebook and Google also provide valuable tools to manage and respond to customer testimonials. Using the administrative and marketing tools at your disposal will provide an improved customer service experience that encourages consumer loyalty.
A rule of thumb is to avoid incentivized reviews. Offering incentives may go against a platform’s terms of use, leading to your account being temporarily disabled or terminated for a violation. Even when a questionable testimonial appears normal on your account, Google may still be hiding them from public view and shadow banning them without your knowledge.
Have Presence on Social Media
It does not cost anything to register for a business page on major social media platforms like Google, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. One of the key advantages is that they provide easy access to an existing audience. By understanding each platform’s specific tools and demographic, you can target your growing audience and keep them engaged.
Pay special attention to platforms that offer business accounts with access to data collection tools. Most major platforms offer a free trial or a limited access version with the opportunity to pay for upgraded features. Understand the limitations of each platform to avoid additional fees for exceeding your account limit.
Engaging in a group conversation on other platforms is a great way to demonstrate knowledge on a subject matter and attract new followers. Some businesses take shortcuts by using apps that automatically follow and unfollow users. The idea is to use the law of numbers to their advantage. The more people they follow, the more chance someone will follow back. Eventually, they will unfollow their new followers, hoping they don’t notice. Not only could this get you banned, but it makes it harder to target genuine followers who are not already engaged in the comments area. This strategy could also backfire and get your account flagged as spam by annoyed users.
Some believe that simply having a large number of followers is all there is to it. Advertising partners won’t continue spending if your influence is not enough to get a decent return on their investment. Algorithms can be unpredictable, leaving only a percentage of your followers notified of new posts. Taking time to build a relationship with your audience means that followers will check in regularly without you having to worry if they received notification of your new post.
Don’t engage in deceptive practices that will only drive down your industry’s value and credibility as a whole.
Produce Engaging Quality Content
When you’ve successfully grabbed the attention of your online audience, you’ll need to keep them engaging by delivering quality content. Figuring out which topics to speak on can be challenging. Find frequently searched or trending topics that need a fresh new perspective. Reading your competitors’ positive and negative comments could help identify overlooked consumer needs. Listen to the consumer and creatively demonstrate how your product or service solves their problem using compelling audio, written and visual media.
Getting “Likes” is excellent, but real engagement begins when a follower comments and shares content with their family and friends. Using a call-to-action like “tag your friends” or “like and share with three people” is an easy way to encourage specific reader responses.
Master Freemium Tools
Subscribing to industry newsletters will keep you up-to-date on the latest industry tools to hit the market. These tools offer a competitive advantage by allowing users to complete more tasks with less effort. It also provides a controlled workflow that closes the skill gap between the self-taught and formally educated freelance professionals.
Freemium writing tools like Grammarly help improve your writing skills and speed up the writing process. These tools easily integrate with web browsers, word documents, email software and mobile phones. The flexibility offered by cloud software and mobile apps allows us to access these powerful tools on the go.
Fancy tools shouldn’t deter you from putting your best effort into your craft. No tool is foolproof. Grammar checkers may have trouble identifying slang terms, overlook unique names, or miss localized spelling for a particular country. Copywriting tools may also hinder your unique writing voice or accidentally change the context of your core message. Proper context could make or break a marketing campaign. Don’t use copywriting tools as a crutch because they will only get you so far.
Free content management systems like WordPress and business pages on Google or Facebook are just a few ways to start building an online presence for your business. The internet has an extensive collection of free tools for file conversion, video editing, search engine optimization, management and design. These tools are an excellent way to get your content in a format that fits with each platform. One example would be converting your videos into audio for a podcasting platform.
Paid tools are becoming more affordable. Google Workspace saves employers the cost of expensive software licenses and allows them to collaborate and work more efficiently with their employees. It is also worth investing in an online training course like LinkedIn Learning to upgrade your skill sets, improve your workflow, and master some of the standard industry tools we already discussed.
Even if you are not computer savvy, don’t feel discouraged. While your computer skills slowly improve, collaborate and network with professional groups or sign up for mentorship programs that provide a competitive advantage in the other areas you excel.
Focus on Customer Service and Retention
Having a deep understanding of your product and service isn’t enough. Understand your customers’ needs and presenting the benefits of your product or service in a way that relates to them is also essential.
A customer relationship management (CRM) platform will improve customer retention by keeping a record of helpful information that could enhance the customer’s experience. It is more costly to spend on advertisements to obtain new clients than to upsell and retain existing ones. Loyal customers put a business in a better position to weather an economic downturn or periods of slow growth.
Creating a referral program is one way to incentivize existing clients to refer family and friends from the same social and economic background. Businesses can manage their client list and divide customers into audience segments using email marketing tools like MailChimp. By creating a customer profile and understanding a subscribers’ specific interests, a company can make more attractive incentives.
Being responsive to a customer who wants to make a purchase can be difficult in an online environment. Adding a live chat feature to your company website may help sales reps close more sales and offer real-time support to anyone in need of assistance.
Messages from multiple platforms, including Google Reviews, social media inboxes and pages, website emails, live chat, cellphone voicemails, and scheduled reminders, can all be synced or forwarded to a single device. There are even retention tools that offer friendly upsells to consumers who abandoned their shopping cart mid-purchase.
These retention tools help the average start-up cover more ground and offer a feeling of convenience when a customer requires assistance. Boosting business on a budget is about finding creative ways to add value without overspending and adding strain to your bottom line. It’s about understanding the best retention tools to use in any given scenario.