Marketing on a shoe string budget

needtodiet

Hi,

I have recently opened a new business which is going quite well with plenty of repeat custom. Once I get people in the door they are happy with the service and have comeback. I am getting custom through referrals, word of mouth and leaflet drops. I am finding it difficult to reach my entire target market anyone got any novel ideas to create brand awareness and let people know im there without spending a fortune.

sbms

Well done for opening your new business!
What type of business is it?

BennyBlanko

sbms wrote: »

Well done for opening your new business!
What type of business is it?

+1 ,

and what is the target demo customer? Social class?
Buying Behaviour?

needtodiet

Oh sorry,
well there is nothing to define analytically. It's just ordinary people I need to reach. it's a retail providing a service to both genders of all ages. Reaching households would be great. I would like to reach about 30000 households in the vacinty but mail-drops take so long and they only work when I do them manually and not with a leaflet-drop company. I think most people just disregard marketing material when 6 or 7 enclosures are dropped together. It works best when just my flyer alone is dropped in.
local rags are expensive and im sceptical if they really provide a return.

ps. it is a destination type of retail not impluse buy.

Evil Phil

Have you considered facebook ads? The targeting can be as general or specific as you need.

BennyBlanko

Are you rurally based OP?
As Local radio can really works in that area.

newfrontier

Hi OP, Fair play to you for taking the plunge.. It would help if I new more about the businees type but I have found word of mouth is the best marketing method.. is it possible to have a "PR event" and link it with your local media outlets.. this can generate free publicity if you package it the right way..

Best of Luck:)

Dark Phoenix

Newfrontiers idea is a great one!

Is there a small local event you could get involved with maybe a sports event or a kids - for a small bit of sponsorship or providing a few items of prizes you could get a lot of PR in return.

I do PR for an amateur sports club. We have sponsors who provide prizes or money to buy prizes for various amounts (does not have to cost a lot recently one was for about 70 euro for awards prizes). The sponsors names are mentioned in all of the press pieces I do which are sent to the local and national papers and often quite a bit is printed. It gets their name out there plus the participants in the sport and their spouses / friends become aware of the sponsors company too.

You could also do something like an open day with special offers or that?

NathanKingerlee

You say the customers you get in the door are happy and come back, so I suggest using them as much as possible.
Even when they don't need to buy your product get them wanting to check out your website/blog. Get them talking about you to their friends and family, through competitions, PR event, sponsorship.
Keep yourself at the front of their minds by a simple email newsletter once every 6 weeks and keeping a facebook business page active, but not pushy.

antoinolachtnai

If you have a way to do leaflet dropping yourself that works, why not do more of that and train one or two other people up to do it the way you want it done?

Also, it might be worth your while producing a higher quality, more expensive leaflet-drop 'piece' to distinguish it from others. For example, a heavier card, folded in 3.

It is important to calculate the 'value' of a customer to you so that you can figure out how much money it is worth spending to obtain a customer.