Learn the Art of Zero Dollar Marketing to Get More Customers
In today’s digital India, social media has democratized marketing for everyone and zero dollar marketing techniques can be a boon for SMEs. It’s about your creativity, your understanding of the customer & innovative strategies that will get you more customers. Here are 7 strategies that will get the customers rolling!
1. Make a World-class Strategy at Minimum Cost
- The basic premise is that the customer should be able to find you. You should not spend your energy in finding people and zero dollar marketing tools help you to achieve that
- Design a website and that has a neat and clean home page, so that the customer can understand the messaging easily
- The website should support a Call to action; this will help in engaging the customer.
- Focus on the solution- Don’t waste your website space on product introduction and description. Maximize your messaging on the solution
- Try and have all the navigation information on one page making it convenient for the customer to browse
- Stick to need-based up-gradation of the website
You would need either a full-time resource or a vendor to fulfill these requirements. Look at minimizing the cost but increasing the scope of work here. And how can you minimize the cost- by using zero dollar marketing ideas!
- Ask the technology vendor to come and explain how the technology works and how will it benefit you.
- Call 4-5 vendors and understand what they teach you and then finally choose the best vendor for your company
- This will help in minimizing your cost to set up your website or what we call as zero dollar marketing
2. Track the Pattern of your Customer’s Buying Behaviour
Consumer behavior is key to an entrepreneur’s business and zero dollar marketing tools can help track this beahviour in a structured manner
- To begin with you need to analyze the old buying behavior of the consumer
- Understand the touch points, how is the customer reaching you?
- What is your customer’s buying process and where is his pain point. Try and solve that buying process gap.
- For e.g. If a customer would order multiple items from a restaurant, it would cost him Rs. 800, but if that restaurant owner gave him an option of a fixed thali with most of his likable items with a cost of Rs.600, immediately the customer would prefer to order the thali. This is how you can pull the consumer using zero dollar marketing
- Take business decisions based on analytics & data and not based on perception. You can use the Google analytics tool for this
- Check which pages on the website show high traffic and which pages show low traffic
- Analyze for how much time you retain the customer on your webpage
- What are the videos from your website that he is sharing on other social media platforms?
- What is the bounce rate which means at what point does the customer move to another video or website
3. Anticipatory Content to gain Customer Attention
- Anticipatory Content is that content which is authentic, relevant, and to the point. Don’t write big articles but use infographics, tabular representation instead. This just requires a little time and effort but is a powerful tool for zero dollar marketing
- Make the content free and make sure it is not about your product features or promotions
- For e.g. For a pathology lab, give the consumer content related to what tests are beneficial for him. For a restaurant owner, give content related to recipes & international food items. Interesting content makes for good zero dollar marketing.
- Understand that content is king and the customer will come to you with these zero dollar marketing technique
4. Flip your Marketing Budget from Outbound to Inbound
- Outbound methods include- Trade shows, Seminars, TV Ads, Print, Cold Calling, Tele marketing, E-mail, Hoardings & Door-to-Door marketing
- Inbound Marketing includes- SEO, Blogging, CRM, Social media, Call to Action, Analytics
- Change your model, spend 90% of your funds on inbound methods and 10% on outbound. The ROI on outbound marketing is less
- Attract, engage and delight the right customer by using zero dollar marketing
5. Build your Database
- Data is the heart of your business, keep your customer’s personal data and their preferences secure to successfully run your business
- Build a database of your prospective and relevant customers gathered from calls, events, old sales and enquiry forms
- Put all data in the CRM software so that it is registered for life
- Empower your employees to build a relationship with the customer using this data
6. Give Old Data a New Life
- Follow-up with ageing lead and build a relationship with the customer
- Don’t waste time on incompatible, incomplete or unqualified data
- The sales agent should call the old customer to build a relationship and not to sell the product in the first go. Ask more questions on why the customer has not returned to make more purchases
- Building on employee-customer relation can go a long way when it comes to zero dollar marketing strategies
7. Story Telling for Recall
- Have an emotional, engaging & educational story that talks about your brand rather than a direct advertisement
- Add a story in everything; from your sales pitch to your brand campaign to your website. This will help the customer connect with your brand
- Become a problem solver!
If an entrepreneur follows these Zero dollar marketing strategies to acquire more customers, not only will his business flourish but his customer too will be happy and satisfied.