How to Get Your Business Noticed on a Budget

There’s a famous line from the 1989 film, Field of Dreams, where a farmer is told “build it and they will come”. While this may work for the ghosts of former baseball players, it doesn’t work for getting customers to your business. 

If you’ve studied marketing, you will know that there is something called the AIDA model, which sets out the stages a person will go through before they make a purchase. They are:

• Awareness: making people aware of your brand, product, or service
• Interest: generating interest in your product or service, mainly by demonstrating the benefits it has to the buyer, encouraging them to conduct further research
• Desire: moving a customer from just “liking” your product, to “wanting” to buy it
• Action: Encouraging the customer to take action, either by making a purchase, making an enquiry, or some other form of engagement 

There is no single part of the model that is more important than the others. For a successful marketing campaign, you will need to get all four sections right. That said, if you don’t make your customer aware of your business, then you can’t undertake the other three.

So if you’re looking to get your business noticed, but you are doing it on a budget, here are some ideas you might be able to use. 

Win an Award

Awards are a great way to give your business some credibility and get some attention. It doesn’t matter what industry you are in, you’ll find a business awards programme that will have a category for you. Most cities, counties or states have their own local business awards, so they can be a good place to start.

If your business is new, there is nearly always a startup category that you could be eligible to enter. There are usually niche award ceremonies for each industry and sub-sections of industries. 

For example, the UK has an awards ceremony for eBay businesses and another for Document Managers. Meanwhile, international awards include the Global Poker Awards, with categories like best “Media Content (Written)”, which was recently given to Martin Harris, and the CIR Business Continuity Awards, which includes a category for “Most Effective Recovery of the Year”.

There are many lists online that will help you find the right awards to enter. Just be aware that some may charge fees to apply for a nomination, or to attend the ceremony. 

Publish Some Research

You will likely already be conducting research within your business. You will be using it to understand what problems your customers have, or analyse trends in your industry. While you may want to only publish some parts, and keep some information to yourself, publishing the findings can be a good way to pick up some coverage by the press.

The results have to be of interest to the population though. For example, research on the number of people that shop online on Christmas day, or that X% of men planned to spend more than $500 on their significant other on Valentines Day, would be stories that many people may be interested in reading in newspapers and online, as the content could relate to their own lives.

Your research could be more niche, if it will be of interest to a certain industry. For example, Epsilon, a marketing company, published some research into what makes people open email newsletters from brands. This research was useful to both their customers and the online marketing industry as a whole, and was even cited in other publications. 

Post a Unique Job Ad

If you have a unique job role to offer, one that would be a dream job for many people, then you may be able to use it to get noticed. B&M Bargains, a UK retailer, recently published an ad for a “chicken nugget tester”, someone who would be paid to taste test chicken nugget products. 

The job ad was picked up by news outlets in the UK and around the world (including outlets like CNBC and Mashable), getting them millions of pounds of free advertising. 

Whatever you decide to do to get noticed, just be sure that it’s unique and of value to your customers. Many attempts at PR don’t go anywhere because they’re not interesting or original enough, so be sure to get creative. 

*This is a collaborative post.