Marketing requires money. Commonly, companies spend around 10% of their total business investment in marketing.
It is a necessity to burden for startups to invest that much money into marketing. (If not more)
However,
The thriving and competitive markets also invented ways through which a business can market itself for FREE. Yes, you heard right, for free.
We scoured the web and found ten great ways where you can market your business for free and efficiently.
Have a Website
Having an online asset, like a website, can help grow a business because it will appear in the search engines when potential customers search for specific terms.
Almost four and a half billion people around the globe use the Internet. Out of them, nearly two billion people are inclined to shop online.
A website not only puts your business before customers, but it can also help in generating online sales.
We know there will be an initial cost to build your website. However, after that, it’s free to market your business to the worlds internet users.
Organise a Webinar
Webinar’s are effectively an online meeting where you can present your business to a broader audience.
Webinars are considered influencers of marketing. In this era of time shortness, people are more inclined to watch presentations in the comfort of their own home from their computers.
All you need is plan your presentations in attractive ways to influence your customers. There are lots of tools for conducting a free webinar.
After signing up, you can produce your presentation to thousands of people for free. If you have never tried webinars, they are personal and great for marketing your products and services.
Pro tip: You can always re-publish your webinars to youtube and other social media platforms to get extra exposure.
Leverage Social Media
Social media is a powerful platform for business growth. Billions of people are on social media channels. Almost all of them can be worthy for your business growth. Here are a few essential and widely used channels where you can market business for free.
Facebook
Facebook hosts almost one and a half billion active users every day. Facebook has many different groups and pages to join, which you can become an active member and promote your business this way. People on FB are there for a chat and to be entertained. Therefore, the Tone of marketing here must be conversational to avoid not getting your message across.
Reddit
Reddit is an online discussion community. You can open an account with the business name and start or take part in discussion related to your business. Avoid blatantly promoting your business on Reddit because you will instantly know about it.
Twitter
A business can be grown through short and often tweets in the relevant niche, retweets, hashtags, and mentions, etc.
Follow people in your industry and regularly retweet and start conversations with them and their followers.
Instagram
Research shows that 80% of people on Instagram follow at least one brand. Go on! Open a business account, advertise and promote your business, gather a fan following and market your business for free. We recommend the same tactics as twitter and regularly comment and engage with people in your industry to market your self.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn can grow your business for free. It hosts almost six hundred million professional users. LinkedIn, unlike other social media channels, has high organic engagement on a post. You can make it a base for your business, which will lead people to your website. And the added bonus of the platform is that it’s more tailored to B2B and is more professional than the other social platforms.
Social Tools (To Handle Your Social Media)
Email Marketing
Entrepreneurs don’t need a marketing agency to develop an email campaign. You can do it yourself with free services, such as MailChimp, which allows small-business owners to send marketing emails, automated newsletters to customers.
Email marketing is fantastic because everyone has an email, unlike social media. You can send emails for free, making it a go-to choice for businesses wanting to bootstrap their company.
Email marketing has a 4400% ROI and generates $44 for every $1 spent.
Consultations
Running a business with a restricted budget? Here is a way to make an impact on your sales for free. Sometimes, your to-be customers can be confused about buying your business-related products.
Well, here is a chance to guide them about how a particular product can be useful for them. In this process of consultation, you can show the vitality of your products and thus the market for free.
Reviews
9 out of 10 people say that they came to a specific brand because they had positive reviews from customers. But getting reviews can be a daunting task too.
Only 1 in 10 of customers are likely to leave a review, let alone positive or negative.
Positive reviews can do wonders in business growth. Try to get reviews via different channels from people who are using your products. If your a small business owner always ask your customers to leave you a positive review on Google.
Video Marketing
Blogging is an old idea, yet it works. But the hottest trend in marketing is video. More people tend to watch videos instead of reading.
Videos can put a face to a brand which makes your business seem more trustworthy. Snappy videos hit the Internet and have a much higher chance of going viral.
You can host your videos on platforms like YouTube, Dailymotion, IGTV, Vevo, Metacafe, and Vimeo, etc.
Among them, YouTube alone reserves a viewership of 5 billion videos a day. Posting videos on youtube and embedding them onto your website will also help you rank on Google.
Google Owns Youtube
Reach Out To Past Customers
Reaching out to past customers costs nothing. It only requires your professional behaviour while doing business. A PR blast on your prefered method of communication with clients will have the power to uplift your business through referrals and feedback.
As a tip, offer an incentive to your existing customers to refer their friends. This can be 10% off your service or something to show your appreciation.
Remember, marketing is not only about gaining new customers through the ways mentioned above. Existing customers are the real assets in your business.
Cross Promotions
Cross promotions are another unique method where a business barters marketing with another company of the same nature.
Let’s suppose, business (A) is selling laptops, and business (B) are developers of anti-virus software.
Both firms have a similar nature. A customer of business (A) can be a customer of business (B).
These businesses are similar and can advertise each other’s products on their websites. Both have different classes of customers, yet they increase the sales capacity of each other.
You can also do this with services, find a company to partner with, and you both can refer each other work.
Summary
To reiterate:
- Have a Website
- Host Webinar’s
- Leverage Social Media
- Email Marketing
- Consultations
- Reviews
- Video Marketing
- Past Customers
- Cross Promotions
All the ways mentioned above of marketing do not cost money; they require time.
You can produce the best quality product. But without a strong and specific target-oriented marketing strategy, that product is of no use as it is not likely to generate sales.
The modern market is competitive and requires you to be the same. These are the times when old methods of marketing are going obsolete.
You need to experiment with thriving ideas which can also save your money — best of luck with these nine ways.
Leave a comment, and let me know if you have used these techniques before? If you have which ones? And if not, what tip are you going to try first?
Ether way let me know below,
Drop a comment.