Competing with large businesses can be tough! But just because you have a smaller budget, doesn’t mean you can’t be effective. It will require research, finesse, and you believing in and understanding your position within the marketplace.

No matter the amount, develop a budget for your approach and utilize these 5 effective techniques to strategically market your business.

1. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF GOOGLE AD WORDS AND FACEBOOK ADS. Pay-per-click ads with Google and Facebook provide an underestimated amount of traffic. By creating solid campaigns that run towards targets in your consumer market, you can easily turn a small budget of $5-$10 per day into qualified leads. What’s great is that Facebook and Google allow you to target a specific audience based on demographics or keywords so that your tailored ad campaign reaches actual convertible customers. The keywords and defining your demographic should be specific so that you capture the right market. The small details in your targeting are really important because you will get the attention of those seeking or unconsciously browsing for services or products you offer.

• PS – Facebook and Google are always giving away free ad credits, so be sure to take advantage of them when possible.

2. GUEST POST ON POPULAR NICHE SITES. Submit articles on topics that target your ideal customer to popular niche sites whenever you can. By providing the content, you get free publicity that links directly back to your website. This provides excellent traffic and potential leads that establishes you as an expert in your field. Again, this is free publicity and helps you get the word out about your brand without employing an expensive public relations firm. Make sure you are always leveraging each article and published mention by including it on your website and in your marketing kit.

Also, you should always post it on your social media accounts and e-blast it to your current clients and colleagues.

3. WILLINGNESS TO DONATE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. Every year try to donate services to huge charitable events around your city. It provides great notoriety and genuine referrals. By investing in local events, other vendors who participate really get to see how great you are and will hire you for their next project or refer you to others.

• Don’t forget that donations to bloggers count too! By sending products to influential bloggers within your industry you inherently create publicity. Many are more than happy to review a product or service in exchange for a free sample. If they love it enough and have a great following, you could even further the conversation by having them endorse the product or service, in exchange for samples of new releases in the future.

4. CULTIVATE AND UTILIZE VALUABLE RELATIONSHIPS THAT PROVIDE INFLUENCE. It almost goes without saying, but it’s important to spend time developing relationships with all people, especially those that are your biggest fans. Even though some may not need your service, you want to be the first person that comes to mind when they give recommendations.

• You also want to make sure you are building credibility and trust over being the biggest saleswoman. So, don’t sell, educate!
• Always be on the lookout for how you can help your network, not how they can help you. If you give more than you ask, those around will become an extremely valuable marketing tool for your business.

5. CLAIM OR INCREASE YOUR RANK IN LOCAL LISTINGS. It’s amazing how many small businesses forget to complete the local listing process on free services like Google Places or Yahoo Local. Make sure you claim your local listing so that you are taking advantage of potential customers in your area searching for businesses like yours. It not only helps with site traffic but can also help you target your email marketing to make sure you have local customers.

• Letting customers know you are local has a high impact on sales because everyone loves to buy local.
• How to increase those rankings? Get customer reviews! It will help boost your business to the top. Google is constantly changing its ranking algorithm to be more customer-driven. So make sure you aren’t kicked out of that dynamic by getting great customer reviews on their local sites.

The biggest mistake small business owners make is marketing on the fly. By not stopping to assess whether your approach makes sense to your overall business goals and how it fits into the grand scheme of things, you can easily waste money and time and not receive the results you desire. Remember – if you are going to use any of the above, having solid marketing strategies behind each will help you stay ahead of the competitive curve. Attracting new customers isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to break your budget. When customers aren’t checking for your offerings, you have to increase your marketing efforts even when your budget may not fully allow you to.

Remember, 

-give your brand the good life-