For many individuals and a lot of small companies, the term ‘marketing’ conjures up thoughts of expensive marketing campaigns and extravagant spending.
With such a large number of businesses competing for attention across the vast digital landscape, it often feels like you’re fighting a losing battle, particularly for those just starting out.
But it doesn’t have to be this way: there are plenty of free ways to market a company. In this post, we’ll share top tips on how to market your business on the internet for free – here are ten different ways:
1. Capture Email Data
Ensure that you have a system for collecting email data from website users. Integrate an email login option on your site and start creating a database of customer data. If your website design platform doesn’t have contact forms, then you should integrate something like constant contact or Mailchimp custom forms to capture new subscribers.
You can then use the data you collect for a variety of marketing opportunities, such as email marketing or building custom Facebook audiences for targeted ads. (Just make sure you are compliant with GDPR …)
2. Email Marketing
You have the info. You need to do something useful about it now. Start by setting up a free Mailchimp account and start circulating those emails.
Stop being too commercial and instead of offering something genuinely valuable to recipients. Keep emails daily but never blast them with too many. Otherwise, people can hit unsubscribe faster than you can utter ‘internet marketing.’
3. Video Marketing
You ‘d be nuts to ignore the explosion of content over the last few years. Get on the bandwagon and get started with some video marketing.
Start by setting up a YouTube channel. You don’t have to make Hollywood movies – it’s just a basic video blog. If you have something useful to say, say it on the video. This also ensures highly shareable, marketable content – put it on your website, and put it on your social media, and include it in your emails.
4. Upload & Post Frequently To Facebook
Social media is one of the most important marketing resources in the world. And this is free. It’s free. It’s best not to sign up for every social media site under the stars, just focus on the ones most suited to your business.
Facebook is a viable choice for almost every company. Sadly, recent algorithm changes have made it harder than ever for companies to gain exposure in the news feed without charging for it. Yet you don’t have much to lose. Post daily updates – be entertaining and fun, don’t be too commercial, and be genuinely interesting.
5. Interact With Industry Experts On Twitter
Twitter isn’t for everybody, but it has a wide variety of benefits. It’s a perfect forum to connect with business experts and clients because it’s a place where everyone can speak to everyone.
Respond to customer reviews, re-tweet best user-generated content, and provide real input to industry discussions.
6. Create An Instagram
A prominent contender among social media sites, Instagram has a rising user base, and this platform outperforms others when it comes to creative imagery. If your business would benefit from a visual presence, then make sure that you spend time building a strong Instagram account. Remember, this is a visual platform, so carefully curated content that looks amazing is the key.
7. Generate Website Traffic With Pinterest
Pinterest isn’t suited to a lot of companies, but it does fit very well for others. The website has one of the highest conversion rates in terms of converting browsers to buyers.
You will also create huge traffic on the website to find out more about what your target customers enjoy.
8. Build Your Network On LinkedIn
If your company is a B2B company, be sure to have a strong presence on LinkedIn. It’s also a perfect place to develop your network. The same principles apply to LinkedIn as to other social networks – connect with important people and have real insight.
9. Publish to Google Plus
Google Plus, the odd little network that never really reached the big time. And it’s always plodding along in the hope that one day, anything or maybe something will happen that propels it into (not likely) the stardom of social media.
Now, given the shortcomings of Google Plus, it’s still worth getting used to pushing out some new content through Google Plus. It’s a product of Google, after all, and if you want to climb those rankings, we recommend you keep Google sweet.
10. Start Using Google Posts
Aim to publish regular updates through Google Posts to make the search engine results pages more visible. Posting to Google helps organisations to exchange information with users who are important to the search questions being entered. It’s a perfect way to get a little extra exposure.
We hope you found this guide to how to market your business online for free. Keep up with posting your own content and if you struggle to cope with the demand required then consider outsourcing your social media management to a professional or get yourself signed up to a system where you can add your content all in one go and schedule them to be posted while you’re out enjoying the world or working!
