How to Market Your Small Business Without a Budget

As a small business owner, I’m constantly on the lookout for the best solutions available at the lowest price. And I get what it’s like to have limited spending power on marketing.

 

But even if you can’t afford a marketing agency right now, that doesn’t mean you have to put your marketing on hold. There are things you can do for little to no cost, without also investing tons of time and effort.

 

Here are five things you can do right now for marketing your small business, without breaking the bank or spinning your wheels.

Be Active on Social Media

Social media is a great way to expand your reach and become known among the right circles of people. It doesn’t take a lot of time — 15 minutes a day can bear fruit over time — and it’s free.

 

Being active on social media means engaging in conversations, not trying to win new customers. Your goal here isn’t to close a deal but to be someone people love to engage with. Use social media to build brand awareness, make friendly connections, and help people with valuable content.

 

Tips on social media marketing:

 

• Spend time every weekday on social media. In general, the best times for posting on social are usually mid to late morning.
• Focus on just one platform. Don’t dilute your message by spreading it around. Choose the platform your ideal customers are most likely to spend their time on.
• Engage, don’t just lurk. Reply to people’s posts with thoughtful comments, don’t just hit the “Like” button.
• Write your own posts. Share an article your audience would appreciate. Share a positive experience you had with a client. Brag about one of your employees. Highlight a customer you love doing business with.
• Don’t talk about you or your company too much. Put the focus on helping others, not promoting your company.
• Pay attention to what others are saying. It’s a great opportunity for market research!
• Be human. Let your personality show!

Network Your Butt Off

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Actually, it’s who you know who knows someone else you should know (if that makes any sense).

 

Networking is invaluable, no matter how small or large your company is. Meet as many people as you can. And don’t just meet them, but build relationships with them!

 

Don’t treat networking like a business card swap. The people you meet are NOT your clients. You aren’t trying to win sales with them. They are your referral engine.

 

Think about it this way. You meet one person, MAYBE they’ll become a customer (but really, they won’t). Or, you meet one person, and suddenly you have access to everyone they know — several who might become customers, and others who could be more referral engines within their own networks.

 

Suddenly you’re connected to thousands of people through just one contact. BOOM!

 

A word of warning, and this is a big deal. If you want the connections in your network to be valuable to you, be valuable to them first. The most effective networkers are constantly showing up and finding ways they can help others.

 

When people see that kind of posture, two things happen:

 

• They want to know that person better.
• They naturally want to reciprocate.

 

In either case, you’ve now paved the way for a return on your investment.

 

By the way, the absolute best all-in-one guide for networking is the timeless classic, The 29% Solution. 52 bite-size chapters you can easily apply.

Guest Star on Industry Podcasts

As you’re networking and connecting with people on social media, you’re bound to run into some podcast hosts in your industry. Get to know them, strike up a friendship, talk shop. Explore with them whether they and their audience might benefit from having you as a guest.

 

Notice the emphasis there. The question is whether they would benefit, not whether you would. Again, be other-oriented. Help first. Givers gain.

Write Press Releases

Press releases can give your brand a little boost in visibility, and help you get noticed by search engines. They’re a bit easier to write than a blog article, generally take less time (at least, for me), and you don’t need to constantly crank them out like you do with blog articles.

 

Some guidelines for writing a great press release that’ll get picked up:

 

• Keep it occasional. In other words, make it about a specific occasion — an event or an accomplishment.
• Write like a journalist, not a marketer. The content should be objective and newsy, not promotional. Remember, news outlets are treating your press release like a news item, not an ad.
• Write in the third person.
• Headlines should be informative and include your company name.
• The first paragraph should capture all the basic details at a high level, and the rest of the press release should flesh out the details.
• Include a quote from your CEO or other relevant executive.

 

My favorite press release service is EIN Presswire, but there are a lot of other great services out there.

Speak at Events and Trade Shows

Kind of like podcasts. Speaking gigs are also great opportunities for networking.

Hire a Marketing Consultant

Even if you don’t have the budget for a marketing agency, you might be able to afford an independent marketing consultant. Usually a one- or two-person business, a consultant specializes in one aspect of marketing — Good Gnus is all about online content, while others are social media, paid advertising, or SEO pros.

 

These consultants have less overhead and specialize in one marketing discipline, so they don’t offer a glut of services. Which means they’re more affordable than an agency — often a third to a fifth of the price.

 

A lot of the time, you’ll get a more personal touch from marketing consultants, too. They don’t have account managers that act as middlemen, but they’re right down in the trenches with you.

 

And because many marketing consultants come from an agency background, you can get top quality marketing help that can’t be beat.

 

If you’re in business, you can’t afford NOT to invest in marketing. But you don’t have to break the bank or sacrifice your core responsibilities, either. Start small with one or two of these ideas and gradually build on them. Get other leaders in your company to pitch in, too — there’s no reason you need to be doing this stuff on your own!

 

And if you want some help from an experienced marketing consultant, let me know. We can talk about your situation and find a solution that works for you.

 

Let’s talk!