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The current state of the economy has impacted one and all, but it is the small, local businesses that are most prone to the vagaries of the economic instability.
Local businesses, therefore, must innovate and work even harder if they are to stay afloat through this recession.
For a small business to survive in this environment, it needs to focus on two things: cutting costs as much as possible, and gaining new customers.
This, of course, sounds very contradictory.
After all, the best way to get new customers is by increasing the marketing efforts, which, in turn, will increase your expenses.
But there are ways to gain more customers without shooting your marketing budget through the roof, and I will identify some of these opportunities in this article.
As a small business owner, you must try to keep abreast of the latest developments in your business and new marketing techniques that can impact it.
The latest way to market your business is through the internet and social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Unfortunately, even today, a lot of local businesses do not have an internet presence.
So the first thing you should do is to build a presence online.
You don't have to go over the top, though.
You can get a website made through a template for a couple of hundred dollars (outsource it if you have to.
Use services like Freelancer.
com for outsourcing).
Hosting the site shouldn't cost you more than $50-60 per year.
Membership on sites like Twitter and Facebook is free, while you can easily learn some SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques within a couple of weeks of research.
List yourself on all the major local directories such as Yelp, Google Maps, Yellow Pages, etc.
The buzzword these days is viral marketing, which is essentially another term for word-of-mouth publicity.
To derive benefit from this, give your customers an experience and service they won't forget.
An impressed customer is much more likely to tweet or tell his friends about your business, introducing you to a broad customer base.
Carefully analyze your current marketing efforts.
Are you really getting your money's worth by spending a couple of hundred dollars every week on an advertisement in the local newspaper? Can you get better returns by taking out that money and investing it in some more lucrative marketing venture? A detailed sales and expenses record can be very useful here as you can compare the performance of your current marketing efforts to your past efforts.
Your marketing budget must be allocated very carefully.
If most of your target audience is internet savvy, then increase your spending online.
If it is full of people who access the internet once in a blue moon but read the newspaper everyday, then increase your spending on print advertisements.
If your target audience still uses the Yellow Pages to find businesses, advertise more prominently in this medium.
In other words, craft your marketing campaign according to your target audience.
If one campaign isn't showing good results, don't be afraid to scrap it.
The key to survival in this economy is adaptability.
Keep on moving and transforming yourself, and you will find just rewards for your efforts.
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