Marketing is a huge part of being successful in business, but not everyone has the money to roll out wide-reaching, comprehensive marketing campaigns for their small business. You need to work smarter (and sometimes even harder) to stretch those dollars as far as possible so you may reach more customers and increase sales.
Making the most of your marketing budget is incredibly difficult, but also one of the best ways to grow as a business without much capital. You can’t just spend a fortune on Google or Facebook pay-per-click ads like competition – to compete, you need to get creative.
Guerrilla marketing refers to advertising practices that aim to provide immense upside for your business at little to no cost to you. Rather than traditional advertising, it relies on you finding cost-effective ways to get your name out there through methods that get people talking. Word of mouth is a highly reliable, low-cost marketing solution that can be achieved with a bit of hard work and imagination, so make the most of it.
Not sure where to start? Below are 4 of our favorite WooCommerce guerrilla marketing strategies to help your online business grow.
1. Giveaways and Contests
Free is the magic word when it comes to getting people’s attention. Whether they’re familiar with your brand or niche but haven’t jumped in yet, or just came across you for the first time, people will go to surprising lengths for “free” stuff. You can use this to your advantage for some cheap advertising.
By hosting giveaways and contests, you’re essentially triggering the almighty word of mouth method of advertising with potential customers. For the price of a free product or subscription (which may not even cost you anything!), you can get social shares that reach everyone that follows the sharer. Then, each of them has a chance of sharing it to new people, continuing the cycle and leading to exponential exposure possibilities – all for a single giveaway or contest. Talk about a return on investment! Couple that with our next recommendation for even better results.
2. Start a Trend or Go Viral
Commercials, advertisements, and other marketing mediums used to simply try to get customers to buy products with short sales pitches. However, with the wide range of social media and other video marketing advertising that is available, advertisers are worrying more about shareability than sell-ability. Their goal? Going viral.
Superbowl commercials are a famous example of getting people’s attention with ridiculous ads that you simply have to see to believe. If done correctly, they begin their own trend on social media (remember #PuppyMonkeyBaby?) and are the talk of the office on Monday. While a simple sales pitch about what their products offer could be easily forgotten, good luck getting the Puppy Monkey Baby image out of your head!
To make this approach work for you, consider creating content that is memorable and can be easily shared on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites. While there is no way to guarantee that you will go fully viral, aiming to be creative and memorable on a low budget can do wonders for your brand awareness. After all, multimedia advertising is proven to be more effective and shareable than text, so it’s your first start to going viral (and much cheaper than a Superbowl ad).
3. Partner with Smaller Influencers for Mutual Growth
When you operate within a niche industry, your most likely potential customers are going to come from those already with an interest. It is much easier to convert someone who knows about your industry or products than convincing someone to buy something right off the bat. This is why targeted advertising through influencers is helpful for attracting new customers.
However, if you’ve never worked with an influencer before, you may be surprised at just how much their influence is worth (at least according to them). While it is certainly going to be tempting to go to a pillar of the community for your sponsorship, it’s a fast way to spend a lot of money on a one-and-done.
Instead, be realistic about your position in the market and find someone who is trying to build themselves up just like you are. You’ll be able to pay less, and getting on the ground floor before they “blow up” can be incredibly lucrative. By starting a partnership early on, you not only get targeted exposure through their influence, but you build a personal relationship as you help fund their growth as well. This can build a strong base for when they do grow, allowing you better bargaining with them for future work and enjoying a better return on past advertisements without paying more. Their success is your success, and vice versa.
4. Transcend the Internet by Getting Physical
The internet is home to a vast online market, so it’s very easy for your store to be forgotten by your customers after their order is complete. While you can send email to remind them to check in, they don’t exactly stand out as a reminder in day-to-day life – something local retailers with storefronts have an advantage on. The answer? Get physical.
Your business has a few different ways to represent itself offline, including direct mail, pop-up stores, or signs, but one of the most popular and cost-effective ways to get your brand seen is through decals and decorations. Often in the form of stickers, bumper stickers, magnets, or just about anything that can be used as decoration, you’re creating an opportunity for free promotion to anyone who sees it. If you have a cool logo or interesting designs, it’s not uncommon for a customer to pop the sticker on their laptop, backpack, or even their car. For the price of a few cents, you’re giving your logo and brand the chance to be seen and asked about by friends while reminding the customer that your business exists for improved retention.
Converting Your Captures
You’ve launched a WooCommerce guerrilla marketing campaign and are seeing traffic. Congratulations! However, they’re leading to more abandoned carts than sales – your checkout page is failing you.
If you were lucky enough to recruit some new visitors and potential customers, it’s important that you make the most of your sales opportunity to close the sale. Visitors don’t pad your pockets – they need to pay you!
Handsome Checkout helps to fight against cart abandonment. If you’re using the standard checkout system with your WooCommerce guerrilla marketing campaign, people may get confused, distracted, or frustrated with your checkout form or website. With Handsome Checkout, you can create a high-converting checkout page that not only closes the deal, but also implements upsell offers for even better sales numbers. Even if you’re not feeling creative, the library of templates that are included offer a quick start into improving conversions on your site.
You don’t need to spend a fortune to bring in more customers – you just need to work smarter rather than harder. With a little bit of creativity and the help of our recommendations, you could become the next viral sensation or take your business to new heights.
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