If you are a new small to medium business (SMB) or a start-up, you’ll know how challenging breaking into a market can be. Carving out a share of voice in a niche is no easy feat, and that is just one aspect to consider for your business.
Being successful and staying successful might be harder than it first seems, no matter how many business loans or investors you have breathing early capital into your venture.
In this article, we will provide some tips that every SMB owner and start-up should consider – be it to save money, time, or become more efficient overall in your day-to-day life.
Don’t Underestimate Traditional Marketing Tactics
In this modern age, it can be very easy to overlook traditional marketing tactics in favor of digital marketing. And this makes sense! Digital marketing has taken the world by storm for its ability to turn local brands into worldwide ones and for the ability of national companies to offer their products or services internationally.
While it is tempting to pour all of your marketing budgets into online and digital marketing only, you could be missing a golden opportunity to build a strong grass-roots relationship with your local area in the first instance.
Expanding your sphere of brand influence in your local area is just as important as expanding your sphere of brand influence nationally and internationally.
A great way to do this locally is to consider traditional marketing techniques such as postcard mail marketing, pamphlet marketing, and community boards.
This can allow you to tap into digitally unreachable customers, too, such as people that don’t use computers or smartphones very frequently.
As a last advantage, traditional marketing methods tend to have less competition, and therefore it’s a good way to increase your brand awareness without the fierce competition that you may face in online marketing.
Get Metered Up
If you have a physical office space, getting meters can help you keep track of your expenditure on a monthly basis. This may seem like something small and insignificant, but it is more useful than you may first realize.
State-of-the-art meters can assist with everything from detecting overcharges to catching things like water leaks. Any abnormality on a meter is worth investigating and can save you – potentially – hundreds.
For example, a small abnormality in a monthly water meter reading could indicate a hidden pipe leak. Not only will fixing this save money and water, but it can also stop the rot from spreading.
Another example could be an anomalous electrical reading that could hint at an electrical fault somewhere on the premises. Worst case scenario, electrical faults could be a fire risk.
Meters are a way to monitor all of this in an efficient, simple way.
Outsource As Part Of Your Business Plan
Time is an invaluable resource when you are just launching a business venture. There’s never enough of it, and it’s the only resource you can never get back.
Many new business owners are reluctant to outsource for fear of the quality of work they will get in return or for fear of opening up their baby to unfamiliar hands with foreign ideas. But this mental block can be damaging to the growth of your business overall.
Outsourcing is a vital step for any SMB or start-up. It provides the capacity to scale your business without the need of committing to a full – or even part-time – employee.
It gives you the freedom to take on more challenging workloads, diversify your responsibilities, and free up your time on more crucial matters, such as landing new clients and developing your business strategy moving forward.
Outsourcing aspects such as fulfillment, delivery, and warehousing (if you run a business with physical products) is one simple way you can save time and even cut costs.
Other aspects to consider for outsourcing are digital and traditional marketing and even some internal tasks such as accountancy and bookkeeping.
Do Away With Unnecessary Services
Let’s be honest, do you really need a window cleaning service or a maid service? Don’t get us wrong; these are important aspects of running a physical business space – you can’t have your place of business looking shoddy.
However, these are tasks that you really don’t need a cleaning contractor for. Cleaning contracts can really rack up your monthly expenses for something you could easily have your staff handle.
Or, is it easily something you could handle yourself? It may only be a small monthly fee in the grand scheme of the business, but it all adds up.
To Conclude
We’ve only covered a small portion of the tips out there that can really help SMBs and start-ups get themselves out there while saving as best they can. Use this article as a springboard to begin your research and develop a mindset that will save you capital in the long run.
In the end, saving capital will allow you to re-invest money where it matters and consistently evolve your business.
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