Many small businesses in the United States underestimate the importance of marketing at an early stage. As such, there are many business owners who choose to neglect their marketing budgets because they feel that the business cannot afford such costs. However, investing in a good marketing strategy is not just an expense incurred, but an investment for the future of the business. The bottom line is that people need to find out about your brand, and marketing is one of the best ways to do it. Below are some tips to formulate branding strategies that are not only affordable but effective as well.

Leverage on Free Publicity

All though publicity is something that all businesses want to achieve, it is important to note that only good publicity is useful for a business. First impressions of a business really do count because it serves as the entire basis of a relationship with the customer. If you leverage publicity in a strategic way, chances are that you will be able to engage the community at the same time. What you can do is to source for community events that might be linked to the nature of your business, and sponsor a certain item or activity. This is a great way to publicize the name of your brand and position your company as one that gives back to the community. Besides fulfilling corporate social responsibility obligations, you could also simply be diligent in updating your website or social media pages whenever you introduce a novel product or service. You could also send this information to all your local news sources in the hope that they might help to publish it.

Know When to Outsource

As a business owner, you need to know exactly what the strengths and weaknesses of your business are. For example, if you do not have staff members who are experienced with marketing, be sure to hire someone with the proper expertise so that you can maximize the potential of your business. By outsourcing activities that your business might not have the capabilities to complete, you can actually enjoy cost-savings in the long run because you will not have to pay external contractors a full-time salary with benefits.

Let Your Customers Advertise for Your Brand

A key strategy that many big brands and businesses use is to utilize the value of their customers. This could mean planting your brand name on shopping bags so that the customers become walking advertisements for your business. The best scenario is if your customers somehow enjoy showing that they are carrying items associated with your brand. However, in order to kickstart this mentality, you could always opt for activities like live screen printing for example. By combining the image of your brand with wearable art, you not only employ the help of your potential customers, but increase the brand awareness as well. This is not only a fun and engaging activity for your target consumer audience, but helps them, and the people who they interact with gain exposure to your brand.