Marketing is the core of any business. There is a saying that no publicity is bad publicity and it is even more accurate when it comes to small businesses. Small businesses generally do not have a huge budget to invest on marketing and thus, every publicity opportunity comes handy if you know how to use them.
In this article, we will talk about 11 brilliant tips to get free publicity for your small business. Let’s get started.
1. Use Social Media
Social media is the most powerful marketing tool on today’s planet. There are different options for you to choose from and you should choose everything. From Facebook to Snapchat, don’t leave anything behind as these all can be used as free marketing tools.
Be active on all social media and talk about your business. Do not try to promote it all the time. Be normal about your business and talk about your everyday journey. You will start attracting potential customers.
2. Use Organic SEO
Organic SEO is very powerful. The goal is to make your product or service informative enough that people automatically find it when they Google the industry or the product/service type. This is a long term marketing approach but if you can make it happen, you will get a ton of responses that are free and organic.
3. Word of Mouth
Word of mouth is probably the most powerful tool on earth to market your business. People do not believe the regular marketing vehicles anymore and one of the few things that they still trust is the word of mouth.
Try to actively ask for it. Word of mouth can do wonders for your business. If you have to give away a few products or services for free, don’t hesitate to that!
4. Try to Go Viral
Whether it is on social media or elsewhere, always try to go viral. The best way to make that happen is if you can do something weird and different from everyone’s imagination. Always remember that common news will not necessarily go viral. The chances of a weird news or event going viral is a lot more than a good news. Try to act according to that and you will be able to make it.
5. Create News with Activity
Do something that creates news on your local arena. If you have local newspapers then you will know that they crave for news and if you can create something “news-worthy”, they will come for free.
What can you do? There are different things obviously and gorilla marketing works best here. Figure out your strategies.
6. Make your Friends & Family Affiliates of Business
Affiliate marketing is a fun way of promoting your business. The way it works is that you assign a group of affiliate marketers for your company and track everything that they are doing. Whenever you see that someone is buying something on your end and that person was sent to your store from one of your affiliate marketers, you pay them a fixed commission.
This is free because you are only paying them if you get a sale!
7. Ask For Referrals
Don’t hesitate to ask for referrals if you think it is worth asking for. Hubspot has a guide on the best ways to ask for referrals. You can use this to reduce the number of reduction. If you have the option, then offer your customers some incentive in exchange for positive referrals. If you are on a service business, where you charge your clients on a monthly basis, you will see that this option works fine.
If you are not in a service business, there is nothing to worry about that either. Offer free products in exchange for referrals.
8. Happiness Marketing
There is something that we call the happiness marketing. The idea says that if you can keep your consumers happy, they will definitely come back to you. Now, happiness is a very personal feeling and it varies from person to person. Some companies think that it is enough to provide a good product or service and the customers will be happy!
That is not always the case. Often, customers want a lot more than that. At times, things like basic questioning, sympathy and empathy works very well.
9. Insert Leaflets in Newspaper
Now, this is not an entirely free method but this is one of the cheapest methods on planet. What you will have to do is prepare a few coupons, leaflets and similar stuff and insert them in newspapers.
How to do that? You need to contact to your local newspaper distributor. Make sure that you tell them that you are a small business and this is very important to you. In most cases, they will agree to put a leaflet in newspapers for you. You don’t have to attach your leaflet to the newspaper. Simply put it inside and that’s it.
10. Honesty
The power of honesty is often ignored in the world of marketing. You have to understand that every customer that you are interacting with knows that you are trying to sell something. Often, they will predict that most of your actions are occurring because you are acting as a salesman. This creates a distance between the seller and the buyer, which you should try to omit.
Honesty is a good way to make that happen. If your product has lacking, you should be upfront and tell your customer about that. If you think that the product will not be a good fit for your customer, don’t hesitate to say that either.
11. Callbacks
When you have a customer, make sure that you get their contact details. When you have a new product, make sure that you call and let your customer know about that. Also, if you have the time, you can call and ask your customer about the last experience too. This makes them feel special and they will remain loyal to you.
Great read. Really enjoyed this article.