Lazy Marketing Tips For Your Business

Author: Alyice Edrich

Are you a lazy when it comes to marketing your business? Are you too busy running the day-to-day operation of your business to put in a full day’s work marketing your business? If so, you’re not alone. Many small businesses run on tight budgets, with small staffs and simply do not have the time, money, or resources to spend more than an hour a week or month promoting their businesses. But without a marketing strategy in place, your business can fail.

If you’re a lazy marketer, these tips will help you squeeze marketing into your daily, weekly, or monthly schedule:

Develop A Following

One of the easiest ways to market your business is to develop a following for your product or service, which in turns spreads word-of-mouth advertising.

The first step in developing a following is to make sure your product or service is something others need, because if they don’t need it, they won’t care what you have to offer.
The second step in developing a following is to design a professional looking website that talks about your products or services, offers them for sale online, and includes a members only area (secure part of website or e-newsletter) where potential and returning customers can sign in, for free, to read about the latest company news, read articles related to your company products, and receive member-only discounts.
The third step in developing a following is to write a blog. A blog is an online journal that allows you to talk to your readers as though they were friends, and not as though they were potential sales. While your blog shouldn’t be written with a sales pitch in mind, it also shouldn’t be a place to share negatives. Stay upbeat and keep your blog free of grammar and spelling errors.

Visit Topic Related Forums

Forums are message boards, both private and open, where like-minded people visit to discuss specific topics. What you want to do is visit a different forum each day. But the key is to visit forums where your buyers frequent, not forums where other professionals frequent.

Spend no more than thirty minutes visiting the forum, pick a topic you know something about and post a relevant solution to that poster’s question. And don’t forget to pay close attention to what the other posters have to say. You just might learn some value information that can help you redefine your business, produce a new product or service, fix a glitch in your existing product or service, or help you in your marketing strategies.

Give Away Samples

Everyone loves to get something for free. Is there something that you can give away that won’t cut into your profits? The idea is to give away something that either helps promote your business through visual reminders, such as a pen with your company logo and contact information or something that will entice visitors to buy your product or service, such as a trial size version of your product or a free information course delivered by email (known as an e-course) to give your visitor a taste of the quality of your service.

Distribute Topic Related Articles

One of the fastest ways to deliver information about your product or service across the Internet is to give away quality-written articles related to your business. And one of the cheapest ways to get into print publications related to your business’ topic is to write quality articles. Articles keep a reader’s attention without making him feel as though he is being manipulated or pitched to. Articles in quality publications validate your product or service, and if it’s really good, will cause the reader to pick up the phone or visit your website. (Just don’t include those same articles on your website, in your e-newsletter, or in your paid courses.) To learn more about marketing with articles, read Tid-Bits for Marketing Your Business With Articles.

Get Interviewed

Interviews offer free exposure and credibility for your business, product, or service and the best part is that it’s all free!

Getting quoted in magazine articles or books is as easy as getting listed on a press release service, such as Dan Janel’s PR Leads, adding a media page to your business website with contact information for journalists, and notifying journalists who cover your business topic and information them that you are available for interviews.
Getting interviewed on radio shows is as easy as picking up the phone and calling the production assistant and asking for the contact information to send your media kit. Once you get the call back to be interviewed, you simply pick up your phone at a designated time. You don’t even have to leave your home or office!

Make A Call

My least favorite way of marketing my business, without leaving my home or office, is to make cold-contact calls. Depending on your business type, you can receive up to 100 “no thank yous” before you receive a single yes, but when business is slow, drumming up new business is not only essential, it’s vital to your profit margin.

Contact Past Customers

Whether your customer buys products from your business or uses your service take the time to contact one customer per day (or week). If you’re in the area, stop by his (or her) place of business. If you’re not in the area, call or write a letter. The key to calling an existing customer (or client) is to make sure you have a legitimate reason for doing so.

Do you have a regular customer who hasn’t been back to your business in awhile? Call to find out how he (or she) is doing.
Did a customer buy a complicated piece of machinery? Call to see if he figured out how to use it.
Did you complete a project for a client a few weeks ago? Call and ask how the project went.
Did your client miss an appointment? Call to reschedule.
Did your client promise to call or visit and never did? Call to find out if everything is okay.

Attend Networking Events

Attending networking events may take a little more effort since it involves leaving your home or office, but it’s really a lazy way of marketing your business because networking events are usually quite fun. They’re meant for socializing and schmoozing with business people who may (or may not) be able to help your business.

The dictionary defines lazy as “slow moving or gentle” and that’s just what these marketing tipsare. They’re gentle and easy ways for you to market your business without having to expand any more of your already depleted energy. While these marketing tips may not offer fast results, they’re proven methods of attracting and keeping customers. So get out there and do a little lazy marketing!