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Small businesses need effective marketing to attract new customers to build brand awareness and drive growth. But because budgets are often tight, large-scale digital marketing initiatives such as print campaigns or ads will be expensive for small business owners. So what's the solution? Low cost marketing strategies. For small businesses, implementing affordable marketing strategies is not only a necessity, but also a smart way to maximize business development without having to burden financial resources. This time, SMEBrother will explain what businesses can do to start low cost marketing and how this strategy can guarantee sustainable growth and attract new customers. Why is a budget important in marketing? Marketing budget is crucial for small businesses to ensure growth sustainability and determine strategies that can minimize business losses and eliminate unprofitable campaigns. Small businesses need to track their marketing budget because they need to focus on impactful strategies without overspending. A well-planned budget will ensure businesses stay within estimated costs and allocate funds effectively. Especially when businesses want to implement low cost marketing strategies, budget calculations and targets must be aligned to match the targets they want to achieve. Why do we need to save costs for marketing strategies? Small businesses need stable costs to ensure everything runs smoothly. When the brand is still not widely known, the thing that needs to be done is saving costs for marketing strategies, because even though the business needs big awareness, it must still think about the existing budget and costs. Doing marketing strategies recklessly and unprepared will waste many opportunities and reduce possible returns. Everything You Need To Know About Field Marketing Spending money on marketing is needed to support sales and growth goals, but you have to think about saving costs for possible mistakes or for savings. The main thing for saving costs for marketing strategies is maintaining cash flow, and businesses need to continue testing and experimentation. Cash flow is the lifeblood of a small business, because it requires funds available for operational costs, and maximizing marketing methods with as little budget as possible. This needs to be done until the business is at a financially stable point. While testing new ideas or experimenting marketing strategies, you can start with low-cost marketing tactics to try out multiple strategies while measuring the effectiveness before committing to a more expensive method. To start from almost free to low cost strategies, we have prepared several ways for you. Low cost marketing strategies to attract customers Low cost marketing strategies doesn't mean the strategies have bad effects. We've gathered some of the best strategies that don't require a lot of resources or time, because we know that the amount of time it takes is the same as the cost of money. Let's take a look for a few tips below: Giveaway items Potential customers or loyal customers are happy when they receive something free and useful from a brand. You can use this method to attract new customers by giving some low-cost items with company logos and can be used by recipients in their daily needs. For example, you can give some useful items such as umbrellas, notebooks, pens, power banks, key chains, USB fans, hats, T-shirts, or drinkware. You can put the company logo in the middle of the item as a reminder of who gave the item and to become brand awareness when someone sees it. You don't need a lot of budget for this because you can do bulk orders and get cheaper prices from vendors but still make sure the items you choose have good quality. Engage on social media Social media is a free way to grow your small business plus express your brand's personality. By engaging with your followers, you can build trust with them and let them know anything new about your product or service. Create business accounts on various social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. All social media will increase traffic to your website when you promote your blog posts, directly dialogue with your audience to gain more engagement, request feedback, and create informational posts to attract more potential customers. Go to networking events Building network is important for growing business reputation, finding new business opportunities, and building relationship with other business owners. You can attend seminars, job fairs, workshops, and participate in local community events. If you have many relationships, you can collaborate and work together to attract broader market in a short time. Create a customer referral program Create rewards for referring new customers. Word-of-mouth is one of the strongest long-term marketing strategies. Start by rewarding customers who refer other customers and make new sales. The opportunity for new customers is higher than through recommendations, because more than 60% of consumers are more likely to buy a product if their friends or family recommend it. Plus, referred customers have a higher chance of staying with the product or service. Publish great content Content marketing is one of the marketing methods that does not require a huge budget. You can create high-quality content by answering the questions most of users are asking. Making your website more visible on Google will attract broader markets, more free traffic, and increase the potential for new customers. Good content helps your audience with their problems, plus you can direct them to use your services or products. Marketing strategy is needed by small businesses to increase engagement and attract new customers, but it doesn't need to use a large budget right away. You can start with a low-cost marketing method while experimenting with several ways before doing bigger campaigns. Make sure the budget remains measurable and on target to increase the possibility of new customers and maximize ROI.  SMEBrother is ready to provide other tips in advancing small to medium sized businesses. Visit our website for other marketing ideas for any business. We will help you to tackle any problem in financing, tax accounting, opening a business, auditing service, loan for business, opening a bank account, and many more.