Getting your business noticed without a massive marketing budget

Many small businesses assume they need thousands of pounds to spend on marketing before they can compete, but that’s not necessarily true. If you’re prepared to put the time in rather than just throwing money at the problem, you can make quite a bit of progress.

The first thing to understand is that consistency matters more than budget. You’re better off doing one or two things properly and regularly than trying to do everything at once and giving up after a few weeks. Pick the marketing channels where your actual customers are and focus on those rather than spreading yourself too thin.

Google My Business is probably the most overlooked free tool that local businesses have. If you haven’t claimed your listing or you’ve just filled in the basics and left it, you’re missing out. This is particularly important if you’re trying to compete locally because it can make a huge difference to whether people actually find you when they search.

You should also think about what you can actually do yourself versus what you need to pay someone else for. If you’re comfortable writing, then creating your own blog content is going to be much cheaper than paying someone else to do it. It takes time to see results but it does work if you stick with it.

The problem a lot of small businesses have is that they try a bit of everything, don’t see instant results, and then stop. Or they spend money on the wrong things because they don’t really understand what’s going to help their particular business. Sometimes spending a few hundred pounds on proper advice can save you wasting a lot more on things that won’t actually bring you customers.