If you own a small business, especially a new one, you probably have a pretty tight sales and marketing budget. However, you undoubtedly also understand how important effective strategies are to your bottom line. Therefore, you may be looking for cost-effective strategies that will increase your revenues.

Offer Trial Periods or Free Samples

You can encourage your potential customers to try your products by offering free samples or trial periods. For example, say that your potential customers are cat owners, and you sell cat food. Some cats have allergies or are particularly picky eaters, and if your target market has had issues with changing their cats’ foods before, they may be hesitant to change it again, even if your company has the best reputation and high-quality food. Offering free samples allows your customers to try the product before they purchase a full-size bag.

Both producers and service providers can offer free samples or trial periods. Think of the digital streaming services that offer seven-day free trials.

Provide Excellent After-Sale Services

Many companies think that after a sale is made, that’s the end of their responsibility to the customer. However, customers like to feel valued. They want to feel like you care about them for more than just the money you can get out of them.

One of the best ways you can inexpensively increase your revenue is to provide after-sale services. This may be as simple as calling to see how the product worked out for them and whether it met their needs. You may also offer products that complement the original sale item. Ask for feedback from your customers as well. Because they are the end-users of your products, they are often great sources of innovation. Each of these strategies builds customer loyalty, encouraging them to come back over and over.

Pursue Creative Strategies

You should not be like every other business, not even those in your industry or sector. You are unique. You have unique goals, products and corporate culture. You should bank on this uniqueness to create creative marketing strategies. For example, although you should produce content for your website, blog and other websites, your content doesn’t have to be like everyone else’s content.

You may produce fun videos of your company, its products or services and your owners. As long as the people in your video are having a good time and it is edited properly, you can gain an audience and build your brand. You don’t need a huge budget to develop creative marketing.

Of course, your initial goal after starting your company is to increase your sales, but you don’t have to rely on traditional methods to do so. Instead, try some low-cost creative strategies.