How to promote your business for free without spending money

New businesses always face a similar challenge when they get launched. That is, they don’t have enough customers. It doesn't matter if you offer the best product or service if customers aren't buying it. And if they can't find you and your business because is off their radar, it gets even worse. Not making enough sales can shift the business's cash flow in a negative trajectory. Hence, you must promote your business so that you can get more customers and sales.

Now, if marketing/promotion is so important then why don’t people just do it?

It's obvious that everyone should be promoting their business. But most people don't and if they try, they fail.

The reason is simple. Most people don’t have the means/finances to promote their startup. Also, many people don’t know how to promote their business because of lack of experience. And worst of all most people believe that there is no need to promote their business. They have the mentality that their product is good, so naturally people will want to buy it. This is where things take a wrong turn.

Designing a promotional campaign

To promote your business, you need to be strategic and design a promotional campaign.

Remember, your promotional campaign has to be S.M.A.R.T (Specific, measurable, attainable, relative, time-based).

Now there are different strategies you can use to promote your business. This makes designing the promotion campaign difficult and confusing.

Luckily, in this guide, I’ll be discussing the promotional strategies which have low cost and are easy to implement.

You can use any of the strategies below to promote your business.

·???????Website

·???????Social Media Marketing

·???????Advertisement through print media

·???????Business networking

·???????Signing up for Google My Business account

·???????Sharing Video Content

1.???Website

A website is important for every business. It’s the best and most effective way to promote any business and to build a brand identity. A website acts as a 24/7 sales representative for a business. Creating a website is the first thing you should consider when starting a business. Now, why is that?

It’s because many people want to know what they are buying before they buy it. So where do they turn to find the information about the product?

Right! The internet. People Google the product they are want to buy. So, if you don’t have a website, you are not allowing people to know about your product and your company. Hence, you are missing out on the potential sales you could be making.

A website offers another big advantage besides promoting a business and building brand identity. That is, you can ask the visitors to subscribe to your email list on the website. That way you can keep them informed about new product launches, promotions, sales, and business events.

Remember, creating a website is only a one-time investment and you can reap its benefits indefinitely.

2.???SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Social media is another great tool to let people know about your business. Almost over 4 billion people use social media regularly. This gives you the opportunity to reach out to a large audience and promote your product and services. Also, You can build your brand identity using social media. And brand identity makes customers connect with your business on an emotional level.

Moreover, you can use different social media platforms to promote your business. For example, Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, Tik Tok. Just remember that the promotional strategy for each platform will be different. For instance, Instagram relies heavily on visual content. So be sure to include high-quality pictures of your product in the posts you publish on Instagram. However, the same image-heavy approach may not be successful on Facebook or Linkedin.

To get started, you need to create a business profile on the social media platform you intend to use for your promotion campaign. After creating a profile, make a business page and post content regularly on the page. Remember, the content has to be relevant to your target audience otherwise you might put them off. For example, if your business sells exercise equipment, then your content should be about health, fitness, and exercise.

Next, you need to build relationships with your customer and create brand loyalty. Because It's generally more expensive to get new customers than to keep old ones.

Hence, interact with your customers often through comments and chats. Answer any questions they have regarding your business and products. Reply to their comments to let them know that their opinions and voices are being heard. Also, you can inform customers about new product launches, sales, discount offers, and business events, etc.

Furthermore, you can also reach out to influencers and ask them to promote your products and services on social media. In return, you can offer them free product samples and some discounts for their efforts. Or you can offer the influencers a commission for the number of sales they make of your product.

That said, if you are not getting the results you want to achieve organically, then you can go the extra mile. You can use Paid ads to get fast traffic and instant results. But running an Ad campaign can be expensive and will put a burden on your finances if the business is running on a tight budget. But still, Ad campaign is an option to consider. You can use Ads to target your audience based on several different factors listed below:

??Location

??Gender

??Age

??Occupation

??Income level

??Hobbies

??Religion

??Ethnicity

??Buying habits

??Values, opinions, and beliefs

[Note: This promotional method is not free and is quite costly. However, it is still a popular strategy for advertising so I have included it nonetheless]

3.???ADVERTISEMENT THROUGH PRINT MEDIA

You can also use the methods of traditional marketing to promote your business. Print media and TV commercials are your best options. You can use flyers, broachers, newspapers, magazines, and trade journal ads to promote your business. You can hire a street crew to distribute your promotional materials. This is a costly and tiresome approach but effective nonetheless.

More importantly, display your logo with every piece of promotional material you distribute. And make sure the same logo is on your website and social media business pages.

That said, advertisement signs are also a great way to grab the audience's attention. You can display your ads on billboards, marques, storefronts, and street-side yards. Unfortunately, they are quite expensive to display.

4.???BUSINESS NETWORKING

Business networking is another great way to promote your business. Forming business connections will get you recognized within your industry and the market. You can join the local Chamber of Commerce and different industry groups. That way you can get to know your competition, get referrals and meet potential partners.

To build your business network, you’ll need to attend business events and expos. These get held in various big cities. Contact the convention organizers and event planning agencies. They will inform you when and where the expos get held. Also, Meetup.com is a great website to find out where local events are happening in your area.

More importantly, these events provide the opportunity to show your products and services. That way, you can meet potential investors and partners who might fund your business. Make sure to bring tons of business cards to the expo and distribute them. And don’t just randomly give out your cards to strangers at the business events. Give your cards to relevant people at the events.

5.???Using Google My Business

Google My Business is a great way to promote your business and attract local customers. Nowadays people search for products online before they make a purchase. And if your store or business is not showing up in their searches, then you need to fix that. You need to make sure that your business appears in the Google search results.

For that, you need to sign up for Google My Business Listing. This allows your product and services to appear in the search results for local businesses. And also, signing up for Google My Business allows your business location to appear on Google Maps. It also provides the option of posting reviews about your business. You also get to share information about your business with Google My Business. For instance, you could share addresses, phone numbers, business timing, and more.

In addition, Google My Business offers many tools to promote your business. You can use these tools to persuade potential customers to buy your product and services instead of the competition.

6.???Sharing video content

Sharing informational content in the form of video is another promotional strategy. You can use YouTube to create awareness about your business and build a brand identity. YouTube has now become one of the biggest channels for video sharing. As a matter of fact, more than 2 billion users visit YouTube every month and each day people view over a billion hours of videos.

First, create a YouTube channel and regularly post videos related to your business. You can post different content on YouTube. For example, you can create product demos and tutorials videos about your products. And if you are a service provider, then you can share videos about customer testimonials.

What's more, YouTube is free. You don’t have to spend any money to promote your business through a YouTube channel. Just be sure to keep YouTube algorithms in mind when you post a video on YouTube.

Best of all, YouTube can also become a source of revenue for your business. Once you get enough subscribers and watch time on your channel, your channel will get monetized.

These were all the different ways you could promote your business without spending money. There are other strategies as well but I will discuss them in a later guide. Please do leave a comment if you have any questions.