When it comes to advertising, a lot of people assume that you can only have an impact if you invest as much as you can into advertising. But, what a lot of people do not know is that cheaper, and even free marketing strategies can be just as effective as the bigger ones.
They are often a bit more reliant on luck, but when they pay off, you can get impressive results. The main thing you want to do with advertising is to make sure that the people who will want your product know about it, and know why it is better than any of the competitors.
Convincing someone who does not want your product, or even worse, does need it, to buy your product or service, is incredibly difficult, but if you know where to aim your marketing, you can get some great results
There are a lot of marketing strategies which you might have already heard of or recognize featured on this list, but you might not know just how cheap they are to pull off.
There are also some strategies on this list which can vary in how impactful they will be. For example, getting the help of influencers can be very expensive, or pretty inexpensive depending on the influencer you are working with.
If you are running a small business, you know how frustrating it is when the people who will benefit from your business the most do not know about it, and all of the advice offered in this article will help you expand your reach and ensure that the people you want to find your business can find it!
So, if you do not have much of a budget to dedicate to marketing or advertising, but you understand how impactful this can be to your business, we have got 10 of the best ideas for you to try which will require too little, or sometimes no monetary investment, so if this is what you are interested in, keep reading!
Low Cost And Free Advertising Strategies For Small Businesses
Some of these ideas will work better for some businesses than others. When reading through these points try and imagine what this idea will look like when applied to your business, and how effective you think it would be. By narrowing down our points you will be able to work out which of these strategies will work the best for you!
Build A Blog
This is perhaps one of the most effective strategies when it is done correctly. By using a website as a blog, you will be able to build up traffic to your website and help it get promoted on SEO.
You can do this by consistently publishing high quality content which will get people visiting your website, and if you are lucky, building up a backlink rating as well.
Some of the people who are visiting your website are likely to be customers, so by getting these people on the website for other reasons, you have essentially got a customer into the shop, no matter what the reason is!
Running a blog is also a great way to flex your creative muscles and test out your skills in copywriting, and showing off any information you know.
If you do not have much writing talent, or not the time for it, you can also leave this job to a writer to keep the blog running, but of course this will be more of an investment.
The best strategy for blogging is to make sure that the content you are writing on is related to what you are trying to sell. You will want the SEO to be aimed at people who are likely to buy your product, so try and stay as topical as you can to optimize this well.
Microblogging
As you can see from our last point, while blogging can be incredibly effective, it can take a lot of time and expertise, so if you want something which is a little less difficult, we recommend microblogging.
This is blogging with smaller posts on social media accounts for your business. Some of the most popular platforms for this are Tumblr and Twitter. These posts are much more likely to go viral than a blog post would, and they are a great way to push brand awareness.
While these smaller posts are usually text or information based, you can also take advantage of the short form video platforms which are becoming more popular like; TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels, however, depending on the type of business you are running, results will vary.
Also, these short videos are a lot more effort than a text post, however, this extra effort is likely to show better results if you know what you are doing! If you can keep your usage of these platforms regular, building a following for your brand comes naturally
Leverage Content Created By Users
This strategy will work better if your brand is well established and has been around for a bit longer. You can use user reviews and any content which is generated by your users as free advertisement for your service.
By showing evidence of the quality of your business, you are showing how trustworthy your business is and showing that it has tactile results. Of course this strategy takes time, but the impact it has on your brand image is worth the effort!
Automate Review Request Emails
There are plenty of free tools to help you with email marketing, and these can help you stay in contact with your customers and build up a stronger foundation of positive reviews and repeat customers.
You will want to get as many positive reviews as possible to show the trustworthiness of your brand, and the best way to remind people to do this is through automated emails.
This could even help you with building up a testimonials page which for some products is very important. A good way to encourage reviews is with perks like discounts for completing a review.
Social Media Contests
If one thing is going to attract people it is the prospect of getting things for free. This strategy can work wonders in spreading your social media presence, and it will also get products in the hands of potential customers so they can sing the praises of your service.
The best way to set up these contests is to make them quick and simple to enter. This could be something like reposting your business, following your business, or maybe an email.
All of these are great assets at making your business as public as possible. These are a great way to get people involved, and you can be pretty shameless about letting people know about the product you are selling, since winning the product is what the whole thing is about!
Promote Content On Instagram
You can either promote your content by using Instagram’s advertisement services, or you can go with a potentially more impactful route and sponsor an influencer.
The best way to use this strategy is to get the help of an influencer who is in the same niche as your business.
If you fork out on a famous influencer who targets a demographic which will not buy your product or service, then you are wasting your money, but if you strategically choose a creator who is smaller but focused on your niche or demographic, then you will automatically see results!
Google My Business Account
This is not too difficult, but people will always go to Google a business, so if there is something there to greet them when they look it up, this can be a great tool. This will also help you in directing people in the right places and ensure that they can contact or find you if they need to!
Try Out TikTok
A lot of people are scared of using TikTok, but the results you can get from using this platform are phenomenal, especially if the product or service you are selling fits what will work on the service. This app is easy to use, and you could very quickly go viral if that is the nature of your product!
Repurpose Old Content For Pinterest
You can very simply repurpose your older content to make infographics which you can post on Pinterest. These are a great way to push your brand awareness and will also help you build up SEO.
Use Referral Discount Codes
A great way to encourage people to buy from your business is to give them perks for interacting with your business in a certain way.
It is always a good incentive for someone to use a service if they know they can get a discount or some other perk by referring a friend, and then of course the friend will be using the service as well. And then of course, if the friend likes it, they will refer someone too.
This chain of people using and talking about your service is a great way to get your name out there! This is low effort and will get some amazing results if done right!