Gather here, folks.
Today I am going to show you 5 ways to promote your business if you are on a tight budget.
Getting a business started is easy.
With about $100 dollars and a good idea, you can kick start your business in this age of technology. Don’t believe me; let me break it down for you.
1: Register a domain name: Free if you buy hosting from the same company.
2: Hosting: $35.4
3: WordPress Theme: $40
You see where I am going with this.
It has never been easy to start a business.
But the real had task or the real hard part comes when you need to grow your business or scale it.
That is where the rubber meets the road.
So today, if you are on a low budget or you just love trying out new things, I am going to share with you my top 5 ways you can use to promote your business if you do not have thousands of dollars like the big brands you see everywhere.
All you need is your time.
7 Sure Ways to Promote Your Business Online
1: Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing or SMM is the process of marketing your business on social media platforms.
If you think using social media is a waste of time, then check out this breakdown of how many people are using this platform.
- Facebook: 2 billion
- LinkedIn: 610million
- Twitter: 330million
- Instagram: I billion
This means that your audiences are already on this platform. All you need to do is connect with them. The major challenge most small businesses usually face is trying to be everywhere at the same time.
This is a recipe for disaster as you do not have all the time in the world and not all platforms are created equally. If you really what to take full advantage of what social media marketing can offer you, then you need to ask yourself one salient question.
Out of all these platforms, which of them does my target audience use the most?
Once you are able to figure that out, then you need to start building your brand on them. The easiest way to do is to create a brand page and then start promoting your business on them. The good part of this is that with less than $2 dollars a day, you can easily pay to push your businesses in front of thousands of people that can see it.
If you do not like the idea of creating a page on social media that I really advise you to, then you can look at related groups on the current social media platform you love using and join them. Become a useful member of the community and whenever the opportunity arises, talk about your business with them.
2: Search Engine Optimization
I am sure you must have heard about how SEO can be a game-changer. But what you don’t know is that you do not need any fancy tools or use an agency to get started.
Search Engine Optimization is the process of increasing the visibility of your business on Google or other search engines. There are tons of information out there that you need to know and do when it comes to SEO.
To do this, you need to do is to make sure that:
- Your website is mobile-friendly
- That the user experience (UX) on your website is great
- You start creating relevant content on your website such as this one I have written here
- You know what keywords you want to target
- You constantly provide value to your audience either in the form of publishing blog posts on your website or providing tools that can help your target audience
As a small business owner, I will encourage you to understand and read up what SEO is all about. A lot of people get it wrong even when choosing agencies to work with it so it is very important that you take time to even understand the basics so you can choose the right agency for you.
3: Classified Ads
Classified ads are a favorite of mine and there is numerous classified ads website that exists.
Classified ads are platforms where you can promote your business for free and maybe feature if you are willing to pay a little budget.
The good thing about classified ads is that these platforms already have your target audience so all you need to do is to identify the right classified ads website for you based on your product, location, create a good listing for your business.
If you are looking for a classified ads website to promote your business, you can start with one of the top classified ads in Nigeria.
4: Forum Participation
Another easy way to really promote your business which I see a lot of people not really using is to leverage forum.
A Forum is a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.
Forums are important and great because they can give you. The good news is that there is practically a forum for almost every topic you can think of.
So if you want to start using forum participation to grow your business today, here are a few steps you can take
- Go to Google and search “topic” forum eg business forums
- Register an account with them
- Read the house rules
- Start making useful contributions. Answer questions, upvote great answers, etc
- After 2 weeks, you can now start promoting your own business on the forum while still making sure that you are not spamming the platform.
The #1 reason most people fail with forum participation is that they see it as a place to just drop a comment about their business and spam it to death. But if you join the right forum that contains your target audience, then forums can go a long way to helping you scale.
5: Content Marketing
Content is king. You must have heard it over and over again. The challenge is that if you are new to the game, then you are late already.
However, I have good news for you. Remember the adage that says “the best time to plant a tree is 100 years ago”? Well, I have good news for you; the next best time to plant a tree is now.
What I am saying is that if you have not been creating content to promote your products and services, then you need to start right now. There are lots of ways you can get started with content marketing and you do not even need to have your own platform. Platforms like medium exist even though as much as possible, I will recommend that you have your own blog on your website where you are writing and promoting information that is useful to your audience. To make sure you are creating good content, use the framework below
- Produce: What are you selling?
- Target Audience: Who are you selling it to?
- Content: What topic do they want to read about?
- Context: What format will they love to consume this topic in?
- Distribution: How am I going to distribute this content?
6: Videos
Videos are a great way to start promoting your website for free. You can practically create video and host them on YouTube which boasts of over 2billion users worldwide. One of the many challenges most people have with using videos is that they think they need fancy equipment to get started. Unfortunately, this is wrong. With just your mobile phone, you can start creating videos that people will relate to. There are even apps that you can download that can help you edit your content easily and faster right from your mobile phone.
The only caveat here is that you must consistently produce valuable content for your users. This can include a tutorial, a testimony of people who have derived values from your services and much more.
7: Attend Events:
Do you want to know a really simple secret to promote your business and get more customers? Then try event marketing. Adding event marketing to your arsenal might make the simple difference between a business that brings in customers and the ones that does not. Best of all, they are usually fee or come at affordable prices. You can use free platforms such as Meetup to find and start attending events that host your target audience.
Do you want to also know a twist to this strategy? You can even become the host by creating events around your business.
Conclusion:
Starting a business is easy.
Growing it is tough. But if you are creative enough and ready to put in the hard work by trying the methods I have listed above, I can assure you that you can quickly get to start growing your business by attracting the right audience.
Now over to you. Which of these 7 methods of promoting your business are you going to try today?