let’s face it, as small business owners we’re as busy as centipedes in a toe countin’ competition, with budgets tighter than twins in a telephone booth. for a lot of us, we are the ceos as well as the marketing, accounting, customer service and sales department. with that much on our plates, it’s tough to get everything done. things can get neglected: we’re too busy supporting our current customers to worry about marketing to gain new customers, we’re too busy acquiring new customers to support our current base effectively, and even if we had the time we don’t have the budget to put into marketing. it’s a vicious cycle we can get caught in, but luckily there’s a way out.

what if i told you for the price of a happy meal you could hire someone to do your marketing and many other business tasks for you?  you would probably say “we’ll if that’s true it can’t be any good.” however, if you know what you’re looking for, the quality can be top notch and can get you outstanding results.

this magic place i’m talking about is called fiverr.com. fiverr is a market place full of people that will do different tasks or gigs as they call them for $5. sure there are a lot of random gigs on the site, but there are also a lot of very helpful business gigs, from search engine optimization to designing logos. and you can get it done for $5. if you are creative, you can use some of their more random gigs to put together incredible marketing campaigns like govacuum did in this article from the new york times.

how small businesses use fiverr, taskrabbit and other services

“that is what govacuum did. in june, the company began a golden-vacuum campaign devised by justin haver, its vice president of sales and marketing. mr. haver’s boss agreed to let him try the weird stunt if he could keep it cheap.”

this is a perfect example how creativity is more important than cost. he put this entire campaign together for under $100 using fiverr. lots of companies don’t get that kind of exposure for $10,000. anyone can run an email or direct mail campaign, but thinking outside the box is where the best and most successful campaigns come from.

one of the hottest ways to market these days is youtube videos. the search engines love it, and since youtube is owned by google, you know google keeps an eye on where the newest and hottest videos are. plus, people like watching because you can get really creative with video, and it’s easy to do.  the problem is that video can be expensive to make, but why make it yourself when you can fiverr it as described in this great article from entreprneur.com.

from www.entrepreneur.com – yesterday, 9:54 pm

“with more than 800 million unique visitors a month, youtube can be a powerful platform for marketing a business online. to do so, go beyond simply posting random videos of your product or sharing your thoughts.

the marketing videos you create should include the following elements:

a keyword-researched headline a clear editorial message (don’t try to accomplish too much in one video) a call to action (tell the viewer to do something, such as subscribing to your channel)

while you can spend a small fortune on cameras, lighting equipment and editing software, the camera built into your smartphone should be able to capture suitable online video. as for editing, if you’re on a mac, for instance, you should already have imovie in your applications. even if you don’t have a mac you can find free software online or hire a professional editor on sites such as fiverr.com, possibly for as little as $5 depending on the scope of the work.”

you tube is a traffic goldmine. it’s a great way for small businesses to get tons of traffic. it’s a bit much to get into exact details on how to best use it for this article, so i’ll do an article just on youtube marketing for small businesses in near future so comeback and look for that in the next few days. however, video is not all that fiverr has to offer. as i mentioned earlier, there are lots of business gigs you can utilize for your small business marketing, as well as administration needs. i put together a small list:

design, video, and social

•  banner design
•  article writing
•  social bookmarking
•  back-linking
•  blog commenting
•  research
•  video creation
•  audio creation
•  flyer design
•  website design
•  facebook page creation
•  social media management
•  twitter page creation
•  logo creation
•  youtube account management

search engine optimization (seo) and online marketing

• bookmarking & links
• social marketing
• get traffic
• video marketing
• web analytics
• article & pr submission
• blog mentions
• domain research
• fan pages
• keywords research

the list goes on and on. i suggest you visit the site and check it out first-hand as the list above is just the tip of the iceberg, but it should give you an idea of how many things you can get done and crossed off your to-do list for $5 each. a list of the 10 best business gigs was posted by ivan widjaya –  checkout this article on bizpenguin.com where he give’s you his opinion on the 10 best gigs.

from www.bizpenguin.com – today, 12:25 am

“now, when it comes to business-related gigs, many dismiss fiverr as the right place to hire “freelancers”, as they are said to be low in quality, useless, and so on. but in my case, there are hidden gems out there you will discover when you spend time to find quality gigs…

so, if you are considering fiverr to find gigs that can help you in your endeavour, you are reading the right blog post, because here i will share my 10 hand-picked services that can definitely help you and your small business – for $5 each!”

i think ivan’s list is a good one and very useful for any business. however, i personally like to use more of the gigs that cross tedious takes off my list, so i don’t have to worry about them and i can use my time more wisely. here are a few my my personal favorites for small local businesses:

1. i will be your topnotch professional virtual assistant for $5 – this guy is great and does loads of different tasks that will save you time and money
2. i will do 2 hours of detailed online research or business research on any topic for $5 – this one is great for local businesses needing to analyze their competitors
3. i will give you a surefire method to get local media coverage for your business or cause … for $5 – here she will show you how to get media coverage – the tip here is look at the upgrades
4. i will design a newspaper ad for $5 – newspaper ad design
5. i will design flyers and handouts for $5 – flyers design which is great since that’s the part that takes the time. printing them on your own is easy.
6. i will record up to a 1 minute professional voiceover on any topic for $5 voice over work for comericals on your local radio or youtube video
7. i will write the script for your 30 second youtube video, commercial, customer testimonial or review for $5 get a script for your videos
8. i will edit 1500 english words for just for $5 – this is great if you have someone else write your articles and you don’t have time to edit them yourself
9. i will make a stopmotion speed drawing animation of your logo company for $5 – just a cool idea to put on your website or for use in videos.
10. i will be your professional cnn style newscast presenter to promote, market or advertise your … for $5 – a gig that you can use in a fun way on your site or in your videos. with this one, or any of these, if you are using a testimonial video or newscast video, only use them in fun ways in a advertisement or funny video. don’t try to  pass these off as real news stories or true testimonials as there could be legal ramifications for doing so.

well small biz friends, i think by now you are seeing the real power in fiverr and how it can save you and your business time and money. go check out fiverr and other sites like it (there are a few others, like fiftytown where everything costs $50 using the same concept, but i have found fiverr to be the best).

don’t be afraid to test some stuff out. after all, it’s only $5 a pop and it’s not going to break the bank to do some testing. after you do, if your so inclined , comeback and tell us about it. we would love to hear your experiences and success stories! just remember: don’t get discouraged, think outside the box, and have fun!