November 01, 2023
How to Market Your Business for Free
You may not have wads of cash to spend on marketing in the early stages of growing your business, but there are still many effective ways to get your brand in front of new customers.
Before the Internet, small businesses had a few affordable ways to market their products, such as printing out fliers or sponsoring small local events. Now there are all kinds of opportunities to market your business online for lower cost or for free—you just need to know where to look.
Learn how to market your business online with these six tips:
1. Use online business directories
One way to market your business is to register for a free Google Business Profile. This is a free tool that allows you to create a Google listing for your business so it can easily be found on Google searches and visible on Google Maps. Business owners can sign up for a Google Business Profile by completing an online registration and a simple verification process. You can also sign up for a Google Business Profile via Google Maps.
Yelp is another popular online business directory. You can create a free Yelp account to help promote your business and engage with customers. Customers can also leave ratings, reviews, and pictures of their experiences with your business, which may help you gain new customers.
Another way to get connected with new customers online is with the Shop Small® Map. Eligible merchants can update their information and map preferences on their public profile to help make it easier for customers to find them.
2. Market your business on social media
Social media isn't just for personal use anymore. You can use it as a marketing tool to gain exposure for your business. Social media is a great way to get in front of new customers and engage with your existing ones. You can post regular updates, provide a behind-the-scenes look at how your business operates, and even notify your following of upcoming sales or special offers.
Instead of shelling out a ton of money, you can invest your time into creating social media profiles like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. YouTube and TikTok provide free channels to distribute creative promotional videos that you can easily record and share right from your phone. You can also network on LinkedIn—both at the personal and professional level as another way to help market your business.
Social media marketing can be a good way to help your business stand out from your competitors. You should share helpful, engaging content that people want to view and that is relevant to your business. Also, it's important to post consistently. Keep showing up on social media so customers know you're “real" and know where to find you.
Want to learn more about how to connect with customers via social media marketing? Check out the #ShopSmall Accelerator. It offers free expert insights on how to maximize your social media engagement, create unique social media content, give your customers a peek behind the curtain, and more. And you can get a 60-day free trial of Constant Contact for digital marketing.
3. Start a blog to promote your business
Blogs are the “original social media." Before Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, setting up a blog was a great way to create an online presence for your business. Blogs can still be effective for small business marketing, especially if you want to attract new customers.
That's because blogs are great for making a first impression and helping customers do research about products. Your blog creates opportunities for customers to find your business in their Google searches; any question that your customers type into a search engine about your business, products, or industry can be answered via your blog. For example, if a customer does a Google search for "where can I find creative Christmas gifts" or "who has gluten-free donuts in Chicago" or "best local technology consultants," you can reverse-engineer your blog content to answer those questions and capture that search traffic. Every blog article can help new customers find your business, learn about your products, and get to know your brand.
Just like with social media, it's important to publish consistently on your business blog. You want your blog to make a favorable first impression on customers, to help answer their questions and build trust for your brand. And be sure to share your blog posts on your social media channels to help gain traffic to your website.
4. Add SEO to your online strategy
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is another time-tested method to help market your business online. SEO strategies can help optimize your business website for search engines so customers are more likely to find you. When done correctly, SEO can potentially help boost your business's rankings in search results and can drive more traffic to your business website. For example, publishing a blog on your business website, targeted to specific search keywords with regular ongoing updates, is a good way to improve SEO organically, because your blog constantly feeds new content into the search engine results.
However, the rules of the SEO game are constantly shifting as Google and other search engines adjust their algorithms over time so it's important to keep up with the latest changes in SEO strategy.
5. Use press releases to promote your business
Whenever your business does something newsworthy, like winning a new client, launching a new product, hiring a new executive, opening a new store, entering a new market, or any other "good news" about growth and new opportunities, consider issuing a press release. They're a powerful media tool to use to help generate publicity, and you can distribute your press release for free online via services.
6. Make your website content shareable
Whether you're writing blog posts, creating engaging videos, or introducing a new product, you should consider making content on your website shareable. There are various social sharing widgets that you can add to your website to provide social sharing buttons that make it easy for website visitors to quickly share your content to their social networks. This means your customers can share your business with their friends and followers, at no cost to you!
There are several ways to market your small business for free online. Social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, X, and Facebook are often the places your target audience is already spending time, so why not engage them there? Take advantage of free online business directories so you appear in active searches for the services you provide. Share helpful resources through a blog on your website and use press releases to share news about your business. Those content marketing efforts, along with a solid SEO strategy, can help increase traffic to your website. The more you explore and experiment with new ways to promote your business, the more you'll learn and refine what works best for you.
This content was written by a freelance author and commissioned and paid for by American Express. This article contains general information and is not intended to provide information that is specific to American Express products and services.
