Free Online Marketing Ideas To Promote Your Business Today

How to market your business for free?

The average Startup Streams lifetime member has a budget of between $350-$500 a month to spend on ads which is a modest amount to launch and conduct marketing tests on platforms like Facebook, Google and the increasingly popular TikTok platform.

But what if you don’t have any marketing budget and want to send targeted traffic to your business? Listen to this episode of the Serial Entrepreneur Podcast to find out.

So, let’s jump straight in…

Always use new social media features

First of all, it’s important to always acknowledge new features on social media platforms. This is because platforms like Facebook and Instagram will favour content on newly available features, such as with IGTV, Facebook Live or YouTube shorts. Social media platforms will want to push new features as much as possible to remain competitive, which means if you use these new features, and use them well, the algorithms will favour your content, pushing it to more and more people. Discover which features are new on your favourite social media channel of choice and start making new content for a boost in engagement, shares and ultimately, traffic to your store.

Facebook groups still work

Sticking with social media for a moment, Facebook groups are still effective. A Facebook group is a niche community where likeminded people can chat and discuss a certain topic. You can tap into your niche Facebook groups and let people know about your business. That said, it must be done tastefully. Meaning, if you were to do nothing but self promote, you are likely to get banned by the Facebook group admins. You need to make sure you are producing 3-5 pieces of quality and engaging content your target market would be interested in between posting about your services. It’s best practise to also comment on posts and get social - it is called social media after all.

Use Medium and Reddit vote-up platforms

Next, you can submit your blogs and content marketing on blogging platforms and vote-up platforms like Medium and Reddit. This will help more people find your content, and these platforms can help you reach a new audience group with content you have already published on your own website, making for a time efficient marketing method. Just make sure you post on these platforms tastefully too, as on Reddit especially, the user base is very anti-self promotion so make sure you are providing more value posts then promotion posts to remain relevant. 

Start a podcast on the cheap

Now, why not start a podcast? Take it from me, running a podcast is a great mechanism for getting the word out about your business and your services - you are listening to this serial entrepreneur podcast after all. A podcast is less time consuming than starting a YouTube channel whereby your content is mostly visual, and you may find it to be quite fun. You don’t need lots of fancy equipment, you could record soundbites on your laptop or smartphone to start off with, then share to social media. A podcast is another form of content marketing, which can help with your store’s SEO if you post transcripts alongside your audio and is a great way to create rapport with your customers.

Interview people your target audience would find interesting

Interview time. Why not interview someone of interest in your space, or request to be interviewed. You may find dozens of content creators in your niche who are looking for interesting people to interview. You can capitalise on this by requesting to be interviewed. This can equal some great exposure, allowing you to tap into an existing group of avid followers. Just make sure you have a strong call to action at the end of your interview, either requesting a follow on social media or to buy from your website. If you interview someone of interest, their target audience could resonate with, you can post the interview, alongside the audio file or video file, on your blog. Remember, all Shopify stores include a built in blog engine, so it is best to utilise this as much as possible.