7 Free Marketing Ideas You Can Implement Right Now
With all the confusion and uncertainty in the world at the moment with COVID-19, your knee-jerk reaction may be to cut back on your marketing activity. However, if you are planning for the long-term prosperity of your business, it is more important now than ever to continue with your marketing efforts.
Remember, out of sight is out of mind.
Keeping in touch with current customers and getting your brand in front of your target audience is one of the most important things a small business can be doing right now.
But I get it, marketing budgets have been slashed.
We are in a recession.
We can no longer afford to do all the marketing we want to do, or planned to do pre-COVID.
So we have put together a list of marketing activities that you can do right now without spending any money. It just involves a little bit of elbow grease and perseverance.
Word of Mouth: It is surprising how many of our referrals come to us via word of mouth. Chances are, no matter what industry you are in, if your clients and customers are happy, they will tell their friends. So always try to make sure your customers are happy! Further to this, always make sure you ask for a testimonial when you have a happy client or customer. These are great to feature on your website and your social media which brings me to my second activity.
Social Media: Social media is absolutely free. You can set up an account on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn at no cost and start telling your story online. It’s true that it takes time to grow your following and organic reach is more limited on some platforms than others (I am looking at you Facebook!), but it is a great platform to talk to your audience and build relationships with your ideal customers. Be authentic and strategic in your messaging and consistent in your delivery and you will start to build a community of followers. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for top tips and tricks.
Gifting: Don’t underestimate the power of influencers online. Influencers have dedicated followers who want to see everything they wear, eat, watch, read etc. You will need a big budget to work with massive celebrities who have millions of followers but one idea is to connect with a microinfluencer who has less than 2000 followers. This may not seem like a large following but smaller-scale social personalities, with tight-knit followings, and high levels of engagement can do big things for your brand. If you reach out and connect with a microinfluencer whonis the perfect match for your product, it could get lots of the right eyes on your brand. This option does require some budget in terms of product and postage. However another option is to look for an influencer who complements your product/service and ask them to come online and have a chat with you LIVE. If they mention it to their followers, you will have lots of new people tuning in who may want to join your community.
Email Lists: You’ve probably heard that email marketing is dying, or even already dead, more than a few times. Don’t believe it. Far from being dead, email marketing is an essential tool for attracting and retaining customers. Ultimately, due to that pesky algorithm, we are increasingly having less control over how many of our followers actually see our social media posts. You can't always rely on an algorithm, so email lists give you more control as you know that email will definitely land in their inbox. There's been a trend in recent years to keep email newsletters simpler and more conversational. Connect with your subscribers and don’t constantly sell to them. Instead offer free content, tips, and have conversations they'll enjoy there. And commit to a schedule (once a week, once every two weeks, twice a week, etc.) so your subscribers know to look forward to them and feel like they are getting something special in their inbox.
Blogging: No matter what industry you are in, blogging creates content that’s going to make us easier for your website to rank higher in the search engine results. Plus it is an opportunity to showcase who you are and your expertise. You can also demonstrate how you can help your clients. And don’t forget the power of guest blogging. Go out of your way to find ways you can guest blog on some ones else’s site. This is a great way to raise you profile, grow your audience and increase traffic to your site.
Cold Outreach— Some times you just have to pick up the phone and call a potential client. But if that is too scary, you can always email them a sample of your work, or slide into their DMs. You can't sit around and expect brands and clients to find you!
Networking Groups, Classes, and Events—COVID-19 may have put an end to those face to face networking events for the time being, although I have noticed that some groups are starting up again. Other groups are continuing their monthly meetings online. So google some regional groups of like-minded business owners and take the opportunity to meet some new people. This group could become an important part of your personal ‘tribe’ (we all need our cheerleaders!) or better still, they may become new word of mouth advocates.
Let us know if you have any more ideas to add to this list.