When it comes to marketing your business and getting your brand name out there it can be easy to assume that you need to have a big budget in order to get anywhere. Whilst having money to invest can make some elements of self-promotion easier they certainly aren’t the only avenues open to you. In fact this guide will give you ten free marketing tips that you can use to promote you and your website, without having to spend any money!
Before you start to panic this guide is full of tips you can actually use – you won’t be asked to just bulk email people at random or to simply ‘blag’ some free marketing from a massive company. Instead you’ll be given hints and tips you can use to promote yourself without breaking the bank.
1. Make The Most Of Local Resources
Do a little research into the local opportunities that might be open to you, for example are there any local business networks that you could join? Once you start to look into this what you will probably find is that there are lots of different opportunities available to you that you hadn’t even thought about. Often you can offer your services to other local companies and use this as a way to network and get your business name out there.
2. Sell To Existing Customers
It is easy to concentrate on bringing in new business and promoting your business to people that hasn’t heard of you before. Whilst this is fantastic and of course the more new business you can bring in the better it isn’t the be all and end all when it comes to marketing and promoting. Remember that if people have bought from you before then they already know how good you are and so are much more likely to order from you. However you need to remind them that you are there and give them an incentive to order from you.
3. Getting The Most Out Of Your Website
Just because you have a website that doesn’t mean that it is doing enough for you. Many people assume that just having a website is good enough to be able to promote your business name however it isn’t always. What consumers want to see is a fresh website full of new content and everything is as up to date as possible. They want to know that the people they are buying from are around as and when they need them to be.
4. Spreading The Word
Make sure that friends and family know you are working hard to market your website to everyone possible. Word of mouth is a really powerful way of marketing and not something that should be over looked. As consumers we often turn to friends and family for reassurance on who to buy from and recommendations on products and services.
5. Take Advantage Of The Internet
Whilst no one is suggesting that you simply spam forums with adverts and reasons why people should buy from you, there is some merit to using forums to get your name out there. If you search for forums surrounding the topic of your website it is likely that you’ll find a number to choose from.
6. Create A Facebook Page
The number of people using Facebook is constantly growing so it makes sense that you do what you can to use this to market your business. You can simply create a ‘page’ on Facebook and people can click ‘like’ if they are impressed with you or your products. This will show on their newsfeed so that everyone on their friends list can see that the two of you are connected. You can use this page to update your status and let people know about website updates, new products, price changes etc.
7. Twitter
Another social network that is worth getting involved in is Twitter. In a similar way to Facebook pages you can get followers(fans) who can sign up to hear what you have to say when you have something to say. They can also re-tweet your tweets to their followers, which of course spreads’ the word.
8. LinkedIn
Whilst you are looking at social networking as a way to market your business it is worth considering it as a way to network as well. LinkedIn is a business to business social network that is an ideal way of getting your name known. You can connect with other business men/women as well as people you have worked with in the past. People can recommend you and it is another way of improving your reputation and getting your business name out there.
9. Keep Up To Date
The internet has a whole host of resources you can read up on and keep up to date with when it comes to marketing and promotion. The world of advertising is constantly changing and if you want to make the most of all the methods open to you then you need to make sure that you keep on top of this.
10. Check Out The Competition
This sounds silly – after all why should you care what your competitors are up to? Well actually you should care, because at the end of the day if they are doing well then you want to make sure you have a piece of the pie!
