Market Business Without Money/ Budget
There is a market for every business/ brand in the world. The secret to marketing a business/ brand successfully with little or no money/ budget is to identify the target group as well as define the goals of your marketing/ advertising action.
Why Market Business/ Why Advertise Brand?
Many people are increasingly starting branded offline and online business in the world today.
You need to set your business/ brand aside apart, make it more appealing to the right audience, to compete better with other businesses in your niche.
The concern of most business owners, however, is how to market / advertise their businesses without spending money or spending lots of money.
Traditional business marketing/ advertising may cost an arm an a leg, which is not an option for business startups that do not have much capital.
Thankfully, there are alternatives to paid marketing; marketing strategies that get your business out there, increase your business’s audience, and convert to sales
- Without spending money: free advertisement/ marketing
- With minimal budget
Some of these marketing options not only increases your business’s publicity without costing an arm and a leg, but they could make your brand go viral. Read on!
So, What’s with the Increase in Business Startups, and why do you need to advertise yours?
It is important to understand why marketing/ advertising is key for any business/ brand. Business marketing/ advertisement is important because there are so many startups today, and in the sea of these businesses, marketing/ advertising is the only way to get and stamp your brand.
The rise in the offline or online business startups/ businesses (especially online startups) may be highly attributed to the financial crises that have rocked different parts of thew world, as well as a high prevalence and use of online platforms for communication, socialization, etc.
Again, business startups need not cost much since the Internet has free tips on how to go about starting ventures, and there are numerous service providers who can help people with the startups at highly discounted prices.
Market Business: Free Options
While business startups may not cost much money, people still need to find to market those businesses and get their brands out there.
Marketing/ advertising, especially traditional advertising, still costs a pretty penny.
However, there are alternatives, less costly ways of marketing a business/ brand including advertising on FaceBook using the Boost Post feature, advertising on YouTube or on other people’s blogs, etc.
The above advertising strategies do not cost as much as traditional advertising.
The best news is that people no longer have to spend money to market their business ventures if they do not have marketing/ advertising budget. Free advertisement/ marketing comprises word of mouth, sharing on social media, social news sites, and mutual sharing.
Market Business Without Money/ Budget
1. Market Business Through Word of mouth
As a business owner or manager, you can market a business by talking to the people in your circles about the business in question. Such talks (consistent yet not pushy/ annoying) will make such people check out that business, and this may result in clients or referrals.
2. Market Business on Social Media
In this era of multiple social media platforms, you can share your business’ information on multiple platforms with the right audience.
You can tag your social media contacts, (kindly seek their consent first, do not tag random people) whenever you post something about your business. These people and their followers will get to know about your business and they may share with other people in their circles.
You can also market your business on the wider social media platforms such as on relevant groups or pages. To this effect, you need to belong to relevant groups, and have some background information about the rules of such groups and the content packaging that performs well in such groups. Share the information regarding your brand regularly (not too often lest you annoy people); soon you might start trending and this translates to more clients for your business 🙂 .
3. Market Business on Social News Sites
Stumble Upon (now called Mix), Reddit, Digg, etc. These platforms have numerous members; if your business is great, you can easily go viral from marketing your business on these platforms.
It is pretty easy to submit content on Stumble Upon (MIX) but when it comes to sharing content, images, or links on reddit, it is a bit tricky; you must read each of the governing rules for the sub-reddits you want to submit your content on.
In some instances, you must meet additional requirements to market your content on some sub-reddits; such as having a certain number of karma (karma are the points for your reddit engagement).
4. Market Business on Forums
Forums are amazing marketing platforms for any business and brand.
Forums are discussion platforms that may or may not restrict discussion topics. On these platforms people market their businesses and other brands without spending money since all they do is contribute to the discussions.
You should join forums where people share information that is related to your business startup or where your business complements some of the existing businesses on those forums. People of a similar mind interact on one or multiple platforms and talk about their similar interests.
Discussions could take the form of questions and answers or sharing tips on how to go about something. Here you could share with the other members your business startup ideas, strategies, etc.
You might even get additional tips on how to do certain things regarding your business. Quora, Affilorama, biztalk, and Warrior comprise some of the said forums.
5. Market Business Through Owners of Other Brands
Yes, this might sound a bit out of place, but it is possible for other brand owners and bloggers to market your business/ brand for you to the people in their circles.
Some of these business brand owners might be doing the same business as you or different businesses.
The system of spreading each other business’s information would probably have to be a mutual one; you share something about their brand (or something else) and they spread word about your business.
In the end, you advertise without spending money. Bloggers exercise this practice in different ways including guest-posting, listings, referrals, and other mentions.
Note
Effective marketing of a business is highly reliant on content, the products or services that your business deals, as well as offline or or online business deals.
However much money or other means you use to get your brand out there, if your content, products or services are not appealing to the target audience, the chances of your business going viral are limited and so are the chances of your business’ sales going up. Other businesses in your niche will overtake you if their marketing strategies are better than yours.
Work on stellar content, as well as products and services that meet people’s needs; then let business marketing/ strategy do the rest for you.
Feedback?
Do you have additional strategies of marketing a business?
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