Advertisements are crucial for business’ exposure. However, if you run a small business, you might not have the budget to invest in expensive marketing campaigns. Luckily there are free advertising options for you to explore!
So get comfy and let’s get right into it.
Why Is Marketing Important for Your Business?
In 2019 it isn’t enough to have a good product to sell. Your business is almost guaranteed to fail if you don’t have a marketing campaign.
Marketing is what drives sales. Without it, your brand is underexposed and doesn’t have reach.
Marketing informs your customers about you and your business. Sure, you know everything there is to know about your product. But does your audience? If nobody knows your business exists, nobody will buy your products.
One of the most important reasons to invest in a marketing strategy is to create a long-lasting and engaging relationship with your audience.
Customer engagement is crucial for growing your brand – loyal customers make a business successful. Consumers want to build a relationship with the brands they purchase from.
Additionally, marketing grows your business. Keeping your current, loyal customers is always a priority, but you need to attract new ones to ensure a growing company. Marketing heightens brand awareness and helps attract new customers.
While back in the day advertisement was expensive and out of reach for smaller businesses, today it’s an entirely different situation. The internet completely changed how marketing works and how much you have to spend to build a campaign.
Social media alone lets you create engaging campaigns and create free advertising for your brand. Some products use only Instagram to reach their audience. All without overspending!
Paid vs. Free Advertising
If you’re starting out, you most likely don’t have a large budget for ads. However, if you are serious about building your brand, you will have to utilize both paid and free advertising.
Paid ads on Google, Facebook, sponsored posts on Instagram, banners, YouTube ads and other paid forms of advertising are a great and powerful way to promote your business.
However, you shouldn’t underestimate the power of free advertising.
So let’s talk about a starting scenario and having a zero dollar budget for your marketing campaign. Is it still possible to show what you do without spending a single dollar? Absolutely!
Let’s see some of the best options for free advertising.
Setting Up a Website for Your Business
One of the best ways to advertise for free is to set up a website for your brand. Having a website is a must – if you don’t have a site, you’re getting less exposure.
You might think, that building a website is very expensive. However, with 000webhost.com you can do it for free!
Read here if you want to know how to create an eCommerce website for free!
Writing a blog about your business is an excellent way of bringing more attention to your brand while communicating with your customers.
Creating quality content is one of the easiest free advertising strategies you can do yourself. Show off your knowledge, build trust in your brand, gather an email list for newsletters and put all it all to use!
You will also be able to utilize SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and rank better on search engines. SEO helps you appear higher on the search engine result pages. This will grow traffic, and traffic brings more significant chances to get new customers!
Overall, having a website is an absolute must for advertising. Creating a website for free is easy for all and works wonders for your brand’s visibility.
Building an Email Marketing Campaign
It’s commonly thought, that because of social media, email marketing is no longer important. That simply isn’t true.
Emails are more critical than ever. As a business, you should build a mailing list and start sending newsletters to your customers. It is a fantastic source of free advertising!
To create a mailing list, generate trust via social media and your website. Offer them free things – short tutorials, coupons, etc. This way, you build an extensive list of potential customers.
From there, you can create beautiful newsletters with services such as MailChimp. Announce special deals, promotions, discounts, new arrivals and so on.
Emailing your clients is a great way to remind them about your brand. You will not be forgotten and will generate more sales.
Free Advertising With Social Media
Social media marketing should be on top of your list when you’re looking for free advertising options. It’s free, easy and fun to do!
Here’s a couple of social media marketing ideas and tips for you to explore.
Facebook completely changed what social media is. Nowadays it’s way more than a tool to keep in contact with your friends.
Facebook offers fantastic functions to grow your brand, communicate with your customers and showcase your products. Facebook allows you to make various posts: you can post pictures, videos, share links to other sites, etc.
To attract even more new customers you can post share content from your other platforms, create polls, events, even sell your products, host contests and give away freebies. The possibilities are endless.
Using Facebook alone is a fantastic option for free advertising. You can always invest a little bit to boost your posts to reach an even bigger audience.
If you want to learn more, read this article about Facebook marketing.
Instagram is one of the best ways to market your business. Plenty of brands rose to glory by using nothing but Instagram.
This social media platform is based purely on visuals. In some cases, creating a great looking feed and engaging your audience might be enough advertisement.
If you want even more exposure, you can collaborate with influencers to reach a wider audience. Some people create a large following just by posting about their personal life.
Researching users with a wide following will help you determine, who can be useful in your marketing campaigns. For example, if you sell merchandise products related to various fandoms, you can try and collaborate with cosplayers, fans with big followings, etc.
What’s more, Instagram helps you keep track of your analytics with free built-in tools. So when your business grows, you can see exactly which posts work the best and attract the most followers.
Check out this great article about Instagram Marketing.
If you are aiming for a global market, Twitter is a must for your free advertising. Especially popular in the US, Twitter makes it easy to announce quick updates on your brand, keep in touch with your audience and show off a little personality.
Companies like Wendy’s, DiGiorno pizza, Charmin, etc. utilized Twitter in the best possible way: they share edgy, funny content, that displays some personality in a very creative way. Methods like this are an amazing way to show your audience, you’re not just another boring corporation.
Just keep in mind, that these kinds of jokes might not fit with the style of your brand. Nothing works better than finding and developing your own unique voice.
You can check out this HubSpot article to learn more about Twitter marketing.
Quora
Quora is a forum style platform, where people come to share their knowledge. People ask various questions, and other users answer them for free.
So showing people you’re an expert in your field is a great way to attract new customers. It might take a bit of time to market yourself on Quora, but it is great free advertising!
What is more, Quora is an easy method to fish for ideas for new content or services. By browsing Quora, you’ll find out what potential audience wants, what needs they have, what problems they face. You can adapt this information to grow your business.
Check out this awesome read for some Quora tips and tricks.
Yelp
Reviews can make or break a business. Customers always check for negative reviews before making a purchase. If a product has mostly positive reviews – a customer is more likely to make a purchase.
You need to claim your business page on Yelp, get verified and from there on – start reading and responding to those reviews! Yelp is the most popular source for customer reviews. And there is no better free advertising than a fabulous comment from a satisfied customer.
Check out this article, to learn more about marketing with Yelp.
YouTube
Making tutorials, reviews and other videos on YouTube is an amazing platform to reach a wider audience and build trust.
If you have the right tools, making videos isn’t very hard (but does require dedication) and can help you with building a community. YouTube will let you reach a wide audience who are interested in what you have to say.
Here’s a great article on how to use YouTube for marketing purposes.
Reddit is a forum type website with massive engagement. If you are an expert in your field, try connecting with people on Reddit.
It’s completely free, and you get the chance to interact with people on a personal level. There are thousands of subreddits, so you will definitely find your niche.
Just commenting on various posts and showcasing your services can bring plenty of new customers. Redditors love funny, unique posts. Similar to Twitter, Reddit is a great way to show off your personality and build a more friendly relationship with your audience.
Check out this great article to learn everything you need about using Reddit for marketing purposes.
Linkedin is like Facebook for professionals and all things business. Publishing expert content on Linkedin is an easy free advertising option.
Not only will you expand your brand, but you will be able to connect with like-minded professionals, learn from various tutorials and keep up to date with your market.
All you need to start is to create your business page, connect with people and start posting. Here’s a great article to teach you all the tricks of LinkedIn marketing.
On Pinterest, you can use pretty visuals to share information about your business. It is one of the biggest social media platforms that’s used exclusively by people who want to learn something or are looking for something very specific.
Posting on Pinterest, like on other social media, is an amazing free advertising choice and will help you increase your brand awareness.
Honestly, Pinterest is a bit underrated, when it comes to business marketing. Yet if you are able to utilize it properly, you will see major results very quickly.
Read here to learn more about marketing options with Pinterest.
Conclusions
Advertising is a must for every business. Nowadays, people don’t just buy your product or service – they buy the branding as well. So marketing your brand is a must.
There are different ways to go, as there are plenty of paid and free advertising options out there.
However, remember that having a website and being active on social media is one of the best ways to go. You need to keep your audience engaged and interested to ensure your growth as a business.
