How to market your business on a tiny budget

If you can’t spend a lot of money to market your business you need to think outside the square. You can make a small amount of money go much further if you do original things that get noticed. Here are a few ideas to get you doing something different with small budget marketing.

What is Guerilla Marketing?

Guerrilla marketing is the use of unconventional or unexpected marketing tactics to get your message to stand out. It is about thinking outside the square. It may include creating attention-grabbing events in public places; unusual street giveaways of products; doing stunts, or trying something unconventional.

It is about getting maximum results from minimal resources. It is very much about doing unusual things with your small budget marketing spend to get noticed over your big-budget competitors.

Tissue-pack marketing

Tissue pack marketing is an example of guerilla marketing. Japanese companies put their messages and logos on tissues and hand them out on the street for free. The tissue-packs don’t get thrown away because they have a use.

What is Fusion Marketing?

Fusion marketing is about combining your marketing efforts with other businesses that share similar clients or have products or services that complement each other to make your small budget marketing go further. I have a client who makes wedding cakes and she cross-promotes with wedding photographers. A financial planner partners with accountants to provide a combined service.

By  forming marketing alliances you can share costs, resources and customers.

What is Ambush Marketing?

Ambush marketing or advertising are strategies where advertisers “ambush” an event by competing with official advertisers and sponsors. It is unethical and illegal to make fraudulent claims of involvement for your business or to “trespass” at rivals’ events if there are regulations put in place.

However, prominent brands (including Nike, Subway, Ashley Madison) have used legitimate ambush marketing to pilfer attention from their rivals. For instance Samsung gave out free phones near Sydney’s Apple Store during the launch of the iPhone 4S.

With all advertising and marketing it is important to stand out from the crowd. With small budget marketing you just have to be adventurous.