The biggest problems entrepreneurs encounter when starting new business is growth. This is due to a simple factor, a limited budget. Having a small budget to market and grow a business poses huge problems in assuring its success. Unfortunately, with a limited budget you can’t make huge billboards or

have those awesome commercials you see on T.V.  This is simply because not every start-up has millions of dollars to invest in advertising. So what do you do? How can you possibly reach your target market with only a few thousand dollars or even less? Rest assure there are a few ways. They will require most of the work to be done by you, but they can be just as effective as those huge advertisements.

Here are your 6 ways to grow your new business:

1. Old school flyers

Yes flyers, flyers and more flyers! These are a great way to advertise your business. They are easy to design, either use free online platforms like Canva.com and Flyerforfree.com or design your own from scratch using Photoshop. They are inexpensive to print even in color, 2000 will run you just under $400. Post theses flyers on billboards, light posts and anywhere else you can find in your geographic area.  You can even drop them off into mailboxes or post them in local stores (for a small fee).

2. Door Hangers

Door hangers are great for advertising your business and getting directly to your customers. Creating them takes the same process as flyers and they aren’t much more expensive. Print up a few thousand and start hanging them on doors in the area where you want to gain customers.

3. Classified Advertisements

Classified advertisements are a great way to reach many people at once. They do tend to be a bit more expensive depending on size, duration of advertisement and the newspaper. However, for a small new business it’s not too pricey ranging from a few hundred dollars to a couple thousand, sometimes a bit more. The other option is posting classified advertisement online through places like Craigslist or Kijiji that charge just under $100 a week (also depends).  They help drive traffic to your website and put your business in front of the right people.

4. Online marketing

Since the evolution of computers and technology as a whole marketing has also expanded greatly to the online world. Social media is a great tool to help market your business through seeking out customers and joining varies groups that can help get your business noticed. One feature Facebook offers is pay-per-click advertising that’s relatively inexpensive. They allow you to set a budget and to customizing your target market the way you see fit. This is great because even for a $100 dollars a day you can have your advertisement in front of thousands of the right people.

5. Network Growth

Although, networking doesn’t directly grow your business it helps in varies ways. First, getting noticed in the industry can work miracles for your business. Meeting the right people and creating awareness can help drive consumers to your business. It’s a free way (for the most part) to gain new customers and contacts.

Another way it will help is by meeting the right people. Networking can open doors for your business and provide you with many opportunities. You never know who you will meet and how they can help you. Two good ways to network are attending local events regardless of their nature and volunteering. Volunteering and helping out the community goes a long way, people will notice and it also gives you the opportunity to gain network growth.

6. Trade shows

Although, this can be the most expensive of all the six ways in most cases it is also very effective. Trade shows offer great exposure for your business and products or service. Attaining a trade show booth can run you just under $10,000 or more depending on the show and size of booth. However, trade shows will allow you to engage consumers and show off your business and products/services.

I would recommend it more for a product, especially one that can be demonstrated. Of course there are also the costs of the displays that must be highly visually appealing. Make sure your booth is attractive to people or it will be a waste of money and use brochures and flyers with plenty of information. If it falls within the budget I would highly recommend it, you’ll able to get tremendous effective exposure growth and generate leads (some cases on the spot sales).

Questions:

Have you used any of these ways before? How did it work?

What ways have you used to grow your business?