When starting a business, marketing is often one of the most expensive elements of making your brand well-known. However, if you put in the time and effort, you can unlock many marketing campaign strategies for little-to-no cost. The more creative you get with your marketing efforts, the quicker you can propel your bootstrapped startup to local business stardom.
These eight low-cost marketing ideas are perfect for bootstrapped startups in 2023:
1. Promotional Marketing Campaigns
Promotional marketing campaigns remain one of the best low-cost options for marketing in 2023. Bootstrapped startups will love how easy it is to buy a ton of promotional marketing gifts to hand out for a cheap, cheap price point. The more bulk you buy, the better price points you’ll unlock.
Finding the right gift to inspire your audience is key. For a mailing company, purchasing a bulk order of branded letter openers to hand out to loyal customers (and potential new customers) can provide a great option.
2. SEO Marketing Campaigns
SEO remains one of the most essential aspects of doing business effectively online. If you want to rank above competitors in your area online, you need to ensure your SEO practices are top-notch. Whether you’re doing your SEO work in-house or hiring out SEO work, you can achieve quality SEO cheaper than ever in 2023.
Doing so will ensure people find your business when searching for your quality services and products. The more targeted you get with your SEO efforts and tagging, the better.
3. Conference-Based Marketing Campaigns
To stand out in your industry as a startup, you must put yourself out there whenever possible. One way of doing so in a consistently successful fashion is to attend business conferences with your competitors. Not only will this boost your inter-industry reputation, but it can also make you a more well-known public brand.
In addition, by marketing effectively at conference events, you can save on your larger marketing costs and become a more professionally managed brand simultaneously.
4. Social Media Marketing Campaigns
To stay relevant online as a startup, you need to begin building a dedicated base of followers. Doing so will give you endless opportunities to market directly to (new and old) customers on social media. After all, people spend multiple hours on social media nearly every day, so if you want to reach them in their leisure time, this is an ideal space to target.
In addition, if you offer discounts with social media engagement, you’ll do wonders for your brand’s sales numbers and reputation in 2023.
5. Referral Marketing Campaigns
If you want to create strong business relationships in your area, consider starting a referral marketing campaign alongside businesses you trust. By creating a pipeline of client referrals between your company and others, you will not only boost sales, but you’ll build your reputation as a local brand as well. In addition, doing so can help you quickly attract the ever-lucrative small business-loving crowd to your startup business.
6. Email Marketing Campaigns
While it’s often seen as old-school with today’s startups, running a precise, well-crafted email marketing campaign still has a lot of value. After all, email marketing campaigns can be set up for free if you know how to do so in-house.
Moreover, these services are often incredibly cheap, even if you hire someone to handle your email marketing campaigns. For this reason, they should be on all bootstrapped startups’ marketing radars.
7. SMS Marketing Campaigns
Depending on your area, you may be able to send out SMS messages en masse to potential customers. You can offer discounts, free shipping, and business updates through these text messages, so you keep customers up-to-date with your business. Suppose you’re using local business app reward programs. In that case, you can use the contact information you gain to ensure you’re only sending
SMS marketing material to people genuinely interested in doing business with you. By doing so, you’ll make sure that your bootstrapped startup’s marketing dollars are being put to good use.
8. Word-of-Mouth Marketing Campaigns
While certainly more complex to pull off than the other marketing campaign efforts we’ve discussed, word-of-mouth marketing is a 100% free way of building your company’s brand and reputation. The better your customer service is, the more effectively you can utilize this form of organic and sometimes-guerilla marketing.
Use caution and good taste if you consider implementing a word-of-mouth marketing campaign for your bootstrapped startup in 2023.