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Finding cost-effective ways to market always makes good business sense. And especially in today’s environment, many companies have had to change the ways they operate, tightening budgets, and finding more creative ways to stay in front of customers. If this sounds familiar, here are 8 ways you can continue marketing without a budget.
#1 – Boost Your Content Marketing
Producing more content is one of the easiest ways to increase exposure and build trust with prospects and customers. The key is to always remain helpful. Find out what problems or questions your customers have (more on that in #2), and write and share blog posts, guides, e-books, videos, and other helpful resources that solve those problems.
#2 – Join Online Communities
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Subreddits, and other online forums are all great places to connect with customers. These are places where people ask questions and look for solutions to their problems. You can leverage this in a couple of ways. You can answer people directly, network, make connections personally, and share your solutions. Or, you can simply scan the forums for topics to create content around.
#3 – Participate In Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is partnering with other businesses to share revenue from your referrals. Many useful services offer affiliate programs. If there is a product or service that you think your customers would benefit from, you can promote it on your website and social sites. If someone purchases through your affiliate link, you get a portion of the revenue. As always, the key is to be helpful and relevant – don’t try to push products that don’t make sense to your customer base.
#4 – Host A Contest
A contest is a fantastic way to get people talking about your business. Use a trivia game, a hashtag photo contest, a virtual scavenger hunt, a caption this contest, or any other fun interactive activity that gets customers involved and sharing your content.
#5 – Find An Influencer
An influencer—any blogger, vlogger, or high-profile social media user with a large following—can provide a platform for promoting your products. Usually, you provide your product or service for free in exchange for an honest review. The keyword here is honest, so if you go this route be prepared for candid feedback about your business. Not sure how to connect with influencers? There are several free tools to help you find people in your niche.
#6 – Increase Your Social Presence
Social media is a free marketing tool, and can be a great way to reach more customers. But it’s not enough to simply create a profile and schedule a few posts. In order to get the most out of social, you need to get your followers engaged with discussions, questions, contests, live videos, polls, and other interesting content. You may even consider incentivizing followers to share your content initially while you build your base.
#7 – Improve Your SEO
If you’ve been considering hiring an SEO company but are short on funds, there are some basic steps you can take, yourself, even if you’re not technical. Conducting keyword research and optimizing your website’s content, title tags, and meta descriptions is a great place to start, and can have a quick impact on your organic rankings—especially if you’ve never done any SEO.
#8 – Work For Free
If business is a little slow, now is the time to use your products or services to help others. Offer free trial periods, donate products, or provide your professional services pro bono to help customers or other businesses in need. You’ll be helping others while at the same time gaining exposure for your business.
PixelPeople Is Here For You
A little creativity can go a long way when you’re working on a shoestring budget. We get it! Just know that when we all come out on the other side of these curious times, PixelPeople will be here for you. Need some help brainstorming some creative marketing ideas? Give us a call!
