In this technology driven world we live in now, it’s plausible to start a business and have an international presence and communication for either free or very little cost indeed, don’t believe me, then read on.

Brand
When you initially start out as a business, or even if you are an established mature establishment, you need to have an unifiable brand that your customers and future customers can understand and associate with yourselves and the product. This has normally meant a long process of engaging an agency to put forward ideas and designs; you eventually decide upon the first initial design you saw and pay a significant amount of money. You now have a choice. Why go through this when you can put forward your brief to external designers who will then propose multiple designs for yourself that you decide on the final winner and pay a fixed nominal price of $250-$500? Sound too simple? Then go and look at http://99designs.com, http://www.crowdspring.com, http://palkoo.com/, where you can have logos, stationery, business cards, websites, t-shirts, products all designed to your brief and time limits with input or not that you own the rights to, once purchased. This is a really engaging experience, in that you can see the proposed designs coming in real time, you can start to see what your brand will look like but also you know that you are going to only pay a fixed fee for the design of your choice, not pay for changes to designs that you aren’t happy with or don’t quite meet the mark.

These sites take a fee off the designers’ payment, so you pay for your design that you own and nothing else on top of that, the sites themselves are free to use.

Email
There is no excuse now not to have an online internet company name for yourself, a registered domain name. But what can happen is that you purchase that domain name and then still have an email address such as . If you have a Gmail (Googlemail) account you can setup your email system through Gmail itself so you have but also you save and store all your emails within Gmail, saving on the cost of an email service, looking more professional to your customers but also the ability to access this email on your phone or other devices.

Business cards
When you are initially starting out, cost is paramount, but you also need to have a form of contact information that you can easily distribute when networking and meeting new potential customers, aka business cards. These can range in price and quality and start at free with Vistaprint giving out 100 free business cards, to companies such as http://uk.moo.com where you can design your own online and get them delivered direct for a low cost in comparison to a printing design service.

Lead tracking
How do you track leads that are incoming, gained from networking, introductions, random conversations? Customer relationship management has been around for a reasonable period of time but is seen as being something that is expensive and normally used by large businesses and call centres, to engage with customers and help drive pipeline to closure.

Now you can set up your own online CRM system starting at no cost, as long as you keep within the limits of contacts or storage, as your business grows then you can upgrade and start to pay when required. There are so many companies offering these services that you need to review what your requirements are and decide which one best fits your needs. Some of the more popular ones are http://www.zoho.com, http://www.Tactilecrm.com and Saleforce. To help understand more about each product, I would suggest you go visit http://www.getapp.com and look at the CRM section, define what you need as a business and then start a trial of one product for a month and make certain it fulfills all your requirements.

Talk to customers
Do you have regular contact with your customer base? Do you talk to customers who you no longer deal with or focus more on acquire than retain? Sending out regular communications to your customer base increases interaction, keeps them aware of yourselves and also you can understand them more and promote elements of your business directly. But doesn’t all this cost? It only costs time, using email/newsletter services such verticalresponse/mailchimp you can email your contact base with personal emails or a monthly newsletter for free and build in options around discounts only found in those newsletters and emails.

Find out more free tools in Part II next week.

About: Stewart Townsend
Stewart Townsend helps organisations focus gain a better understanding of new socially focused technologies. We do this through consultancy, workshops and events across industries as diverse as education, new media and technology. Stewart Townsend has developed new media strategies to drive business and marketing messages for Sun Microsystems corporation, Oracle Corporation and advised small business such as BookingBug, 3rd Degree and Mobileoninc.
Web site: http://www.stewarttownsend.com
Twitter: @stewarttownsend
Email:

If you would like to use these tools, would like 1:1 review of your business and see where cost savings can be made and also how I can help drive focused lead generation to targeted contacts, then please get in touch.