50 bootstrap marketing ideas for small business owners

Bootstrap marketing is what the web is all about—a way of promoting a business on a tight budget, maximising return on investment and minimising risk.

You might already be involved in bootstrap marketing, without even realising it, if you have a social networking account that mentions your business, or a van with your contact details painted on the side.

It’s not just the internet that counts towards your marketing efforts – any low-cost attempts to promote a business without spending much money fall under the same heading.

So with that in mind, what are the best options? Here is Bytestart’s massive list of the top 50 marketing techniques for small businesses.

Bootstrap marketing online

Let’s start with the top ten web-based marketing methods for small businesses with tight budgets.

1. Join social media channels

Social media is huge – almost everyone uses it – whether it’s to keep up with friends on Facebook, or to maintain your professional profile on LinkedIn.

All businesses can benefit from setting up accounts with the main social media sites. However, different platforms will appeal to different types of companies – for example, Instagram is a perfect fit if you’re into visual marketing.

The key thing is to devote some time each day to updating your social – even if it’s just to link to a new blog post via your Twitter account.

2. Create a newsletter

Email is a great way to keep in touch with clients, and a regular email newsletter can reach all of them at once. Over the years, despite the rapid change in technology, email remains an essential part of your marketing effort.

Just remember to provide unsubscribe links and respect people’s privacy, if they don’t want your marketing messages dropping into their inbox.

Campaign Monitor has always worked well for us at Bytestart. There are plenty of free alternatives, especially if you have a small list to start with.

3. Hit the forums

Although they have decined in popularity relative to social media channels, online business forums such as UKBF remain a good way to build your reputation and respond to any comments about your brand – just don’t get addicted to them!

4. Write a whitepaper

A whitepaper is a document that outlines a problem and a solution – and naturally, the solution will often involve your product or service.

Problem-solving is an important way to reach your audience, so think about adding whitepapers as a formal kind of FAQ section on your website.

5. Do something good

There’s a whole web full of good causes out there, so find one that’s relevant to your business, and support it – even just by giving it a short write-up on your website and adding a way for people to donate.

6. Get testimonials

The internet makes it very easy to get testimonials from happy customers, and to show them to new clients – keep a section of your homepage for positive comments, and keep them updated. LinkedIn is also a good place to display recommendations from colleagues, clients and customers.

7. Start a referral programme

Online referral programmes can be straightforward to look after – you just offer an incentive to people who refer business your way. Of course, this is one you can try offline too, if it suits your business better.

8. Share your knowledge

Informative articles, top tips and ‘how-to’ guides are among the most popular content on the web, so put your expertise down on (virtual) paper and watch your search traffic climb.

9. Start a blog

Blogging is an easy way to increase your web presence if you’re not great at formal writing, as readers are usually much more forgiving of typos and grammatical errors.

Add a blog to your website to help it to grow, or start a separate blog that you can promote in its own right – either option shouldn’t cost much. WordPress is by far the most popular platform. It’s easy to use, and completely free too.

You can host it yourself, or use one of the dozens of third-party hosted options.

10. Update your website

It should go without saying, but too often businesses shell out for a basic website, and never update their static content.

Adding new pages, and tweaking what’s already there, can show Google and your customers that your business is alive and kicking – and regular updates can keep your site ranking well in the search results, too.

When you update your site, make sure you also let people know via your social media channels.

Bootstrap marketing offline

The internet is not the only place where you can advertise your business without spending too much of your budget – your offline activities matter too.

Here are ten of the top options for promoting a business offline, without breaking the bank.

11. Bag some radio airtime

Befriending a local radio presenter might not be easy, but it could be your route to some free airtime – and hey, it’s got to be worth a try, right?

12. Loyalty cards

Reward your loyal customers with special offers and free gifts, or offer discount cards to newcomers to help snare their business, and they’ll keep coming back for more.

13. Competitions

If ongoing loyalty schemes sound too much like hard work, a one-off competition can create a lot of marketing buzz and get you lots of people’s details, for the cost of a single prize.

Make it one of your products or services, and you can give your winner something that they’ll perceive at market value, but for which you only had to pay the cost price.

14. Business cards

A sleek and simple business card can be impressive, but don’t be afraid to use the back if you want to list the services you offer – it’s a conveniently sized advertisement for your company that many people might carry with them in their wallets or purses. Try Moo.com for a smart, but cost-effective business card printing service.

15. Stationery

Your stationery should also include the essentials about your company, including your contact details, such as your email address, web address, telephone number, and so on.

16. Invoice ads

When you issue an invoice, leave some room in your template for all of those contact details, along with any special offers you’re running, and you could find your next invoice for that customer for a larger amount of work.

17. Text messages

Text marketing isn’t suitable for all businesses, but it can be helpful in a local market, particularly if you’re in entertainment or hospitality. It can also be very intrusive unless your potential customers have actively signed up to get updates!

As always, give your SMS subscribers a clear and easy way to remove their number from your list, and don’t overdo it with the number of messages you send.

18. Keep ’em waiting

Nobody suggests you put callers on hold as a marketing ploy, but if they’re going to be there anyway, you may as well advertise to them.

19. Answerphone advertising

Likewise, make your out-of-hours message something positive and marketing-savvy, and stress your levels of customer service.

20. Answer the phone

Answering the phone is the best option when people call you – and it’s our top tip in this section, too.

Too many businesses leave the phone ringing off the hook, and miss countless potentially profitable enquiries in the process.

Make it a priority to answer calls promptly unless you absolutely cannot, and you never need to miss out on an order again without good reason.

Buzz-building and bootstraps

So far we’ve looked at promoting your business online and offline on a shoestring budget, but when it comes to really building a brand, you need your company to become more than just the sum of its marketing parts.

That’s where bootstrap marketing really comes into its own, as you combine multiple low-cost methods to create an integrated campaign for next to nothing.

Here are just ten ways to build some branding buzz without having to shell out much upfront – and if you’re feeling particularly innovative, you might find you can add some ideas to this list.

21. Freebies

Give a customer a freebie, and they’ll love your brand forever. That’s an exaggeration, but a carefully chosen freebie can be a great introduction to your product range.

22. Give a talk

Appear in person, and you can promote your product or service without interference from editors and other advertisers.

Check out the opportunities for giving talks in your local area – business seminars are a good place to start, along with universities if appropriate.

23. Networking

Those same business seminars are the perfect opportunity for some networking. Meet with suppliers, collaborators and even competitors, and get a true taste for what’s going on in the local market.

24. Promotional people

If you’re too busy running your business to get out there and promote it, get some people to do it for you.

Whether it’s just handing out flyers, or giving out those freebies mentioned above, there’s plenty of people who will take to the streets on your behalf, for a fairly competitive wage.

25. Case studies

Case studies are like in-depth testimonials, and they’re a great way to demonstrate any past projects you’re particularly proud of – you don’t necessarily need a comment from the client, but it can help if they’re happy to say how pleased they were with your work.

26 Press releases

Press releases can focus on case studies, new product launches, or any kind of research you may have carried out.

Add them to your website’s news or press section, send them to local publications and the trade press, and generally do your utmost to get your company mentioned wherever possible.

27. Write to your local newspaper

Local newspapers love to show how well local businesses are doing, so if you have a particular success, let the press know.

Similarly, if there’s a controversial issue that affects you and your customers, write to the letters page, and you could get your business mentioned that way too.

28. Publicity stunts

If there’s nothing obvious to get you into the papers, go for the obscure instead.

Projecting on to buildings has been popular ever since Gail Porter’s cheeky appearance on the Houses of Parliament back in 1999, and is still an eye-catching option today.

29. Get on the phone

Phone calls are a handy way to reach out to customers without having to leave the office, so put in a quick call when you get time, and keep your clients happy with a good level of customer service and a clear interest in their satisfaction levels.

30. Personify your brand

You’re the spokesperson for your brand, so don’t be afraid to tell your customers where you’ve come from.

Make yourself the centre of your brand – like Richard Branson or Elon Musk – and you can reach customers on a personal level, as well as through your more conventional, businesslike promotional activities.

A bootstrap state of mind

Over the previous three sections of this introduction to bootstrap marketing, we’ve looked at the different ways in which you can promote your brand. But obviously there are different approaches to adopt, even to the same marketing method – and it’s up to you to choose the style that’s best suited to your business.

Your best bet is to try and get all of your activities undertaken with the same state of mind – that doesn’t mean everything has to be serious promotional effort, or that you can only use alternative, ‘fun’ modes of marketing.

Rather, it’s about making sure that positivity pervades everything you do, so your advertising does not clash with the reality for customers dealing with your brand.

31. Customer service

Good customer service should be an integral part of a good service anyway, but if you treat your existing customers well, they’re more likely to tell their friends, driving your positive word of mouth far and wide.

32. Credibility

Again, your credibility is associated with your word of mouth, and how your company is perceived among the other brands in your sector.

Work with integrity, fulfil your commitments, and don’t use shady tactics to undermine your opponents, and credibility should simply be a natural consequence of this.

33. Campaign for change

If you believe strongly in a cause, don’t be afraid to campaign for it – in many cases, you can tie this into your business operations as part of your corporate social responsibility or environmental commitments.

Even if not, fundraising activities are a good way to show that you care about your local area, or about the world in general, and again should help create positive perceptions of your company.

34. Dress differently

Many modern, forward-thinking companies shy away from strict dress codes, and your employees will thank you if you do the same.

Dress-down days can be tied into fundraising efforts, if you don’t want to abandon a formal dress code completely.

35. Do something unpredictable

Got an idea for an offer or publicity stunt, but haven’t seen it done before? That’s sometimes a good thing – just because nobody else has tried it, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea.

Be innovative and unexpected, and you’ll not only generate interest in your brand; you’ll also add an extra level of intrigue to whatever you choose to do next.

36. Help a charity

As with campaigning for a good cause, helping a specific charity is a good idea simply because it shows you care.

With specific sponsorship and long-term collaboration, though, you can go even further, demonstrating your dedication to the cause through a rewarding private-nonprofit partnership.

37. Fun marketing

Even the most boring of products and services can benefit from a bit of fun marketing.

Figure out a way of painting your product in a new light, get out there and promote it – you could unlock a whole new area of the market in the process.

38. Focus on staff

Our top three suggestions are totally about your own state of mind – and that of your employees.

Focus on worker welfare, training and development, and on generally bringing the best out of your people, and their positive attitude will spill over into other areas of their work.

39. Go the extra mile

Encourage your workforce to deliver an unbeatable level of service, and make sure you’re willing to do the same for your employees, for a top-down approach to excellence.

40. Enthusiasm

Whatever you do in business, do it with enthusiasm – if you embrace each challenge, you’re much more likely to prevail.

Cost and profit, bootstrap-style

In the first four sets of tips, we looked at online and offline marketing techniques, how to build some buzz around your promotional campaign, and how to adopt a positive approach in other aspects of your business.

With this fifth and final section, we tie it all together by looking at a final few topics relating to streamlining your business, getting your affairs in order, and maximising your profit.

In business, everything affects how much you earn – even if you don’t realise it at first. The secret to bootstrap marketing lies in identifying how each factor takes hold of your operations, and turning it to your advantage with minimal outlay.

41. Have a spring clean

Tidy office, tidy mind, right? Seriously, keeping your workplace clean and organised reduces health risks, cutting down on sick days, while helping you to know where important paperwork can be found.

42. Topical themes

Make the most of seasonal opportunities – summertime, Christmas, and so on – as well as any topical themes or events, like the World Cup, Eurovision or the Olympic Games.

Often, industry-specific news stories can be turned into marketing tools, and may be much less hotly contested in terms of search engine position.

43. Guarantees

These days, you’re as likely to see a money-back guarantee as you are to see a guarantee that a product will not fail or break.

Either way, guarantees give peace of mind to would-be customers that their money is not at risk if they purchase a product and later change their mind, which increases the chance of them buying it at all.

44. Put up your prices

Economists call it ‘price elasticity of demand’ – the amount by which you can raise your prices and still make a sale – but in the real, day to day world, it’s simply about getting the most money for each sale.

Think of the shops that put umbrellas nearer to the door when it rains – if you were one of them, you could easily add a pound to the price of each umbrella, and still sell plenty of them, for more overall profit.

45. Cross-promote and sell up

If you have complementary goods and services, make sure your customers are aware of that fact – in the same way that, for example, TV companies now often offer broadband and telephone connections too.

Even if you can’t see an opportunity to cross-promote your services, don’t be afraid to try and ‘sell up’ your customers by letting them know about a better (i.e. more expensive) alternative to the service they’re currently paying you for.

46. Gift vouchers

It isn’t too expensive to have gift vouchers printed, and they allow your products and services to be given as presents – potentially from someone who wouldn’t buy your products themselves, to somebody who wouldn’t either, making two non-customers into one sale.

47. Join local groups

Get involved with business forums (of the offline variety) and real-world discussion groups, and you can establish yourself as a voice to be heard in your local business community.

48. Print a catalogue

A catalogue gives you a single place to showcase everything you have to offer and you can multitask to reach new customers and stay in the minds of existing clients.

49. Lower prices for repeat business

Loyal customers deserve a reward, and if you don’t fancy running a fully featured loyalty scheme, a simple discount for repeat orders can be a useful alternative.

50. Take a holiday

Take a break – you deserve one. You’ll come back (hopefully) feeling refreshed and positive, and ready to throw yourself into your work with renewed vigour – and with a renewed you at the helm, how could your business possibly fail?