Low-Cost Business Marketing Ideas Pt. III

This article is the third part of our Low-Cost Business Marketing Ideas series. Here we will present more low-cost or free marketing strategies that you can use to help grow your business's customer base.

The low-cost business marketing strategies we will discuss in this article are the following:

• Free Give Aways
• Sponsor a Social Media Influencer
• Offer Discounts
• Host a Free Webinar
• Host a Free Class

• Give Away your Product

  Giving away your product can be one of the most effective strategies to help promote your business and can be implemented in a number of ways. People enjoy receiving free products and can get excited to try something out if it is offered to them for free. You can offer potential customers a trial period of your service or a free sample of your product. Additionally, you can provide a free sample of your product in exchange for them signing up for your email newsletter, which can extend your email marketing reach and conversions. If people like your product, they may become repeat customers. These people would likely have a positive association with your company because you went out of your way to give them something for free that they liked.

• Sponsor a Social Media Influencer

  Sponsoring a social media influencer is another way to give away your product, but one that could have a significantly greater impact. By giving away your product or services to a social media influencer in exchange for a product review or promotion on their platform, you will only be giving one person a free product or service. However, this person can promote it to many more people who follow them. A prominent social media influencer could potentially have hundreds of thousands to millions of followers.

  One of the most popular ways to sponsor someone with a large social media following is through YouTube. By sponsoring a social media influencer on YouTube, they could mention your company, feature your product in one of their videos, and provide links to your website as part of a promotion. You could do recurring promotions with the influencer, and they could continually mention your company as they release their new videos. They could also create an entire video on your product, service, or company. A video about your product, service, or company has the opportunity to be seen by many people not only when it first comes out but also well beyond its initial debut and perhaps for years. It would likely have keywords in the title related to your products, services, or company, which can leverage the influencer's channel's popularity and SEO success to your benefit.

  If you have a niche product or service, you could target a social media influencer who makes content about your specific industry. For example, if you are an author wanting to promote your book, you could contact a popular book review personality who has a lot of followers. This is a great strategy to get your product in front of and gain access to a large number of potential customers. Social media influencers do have influence, and their followers tend to respect their opinions on a number of things. Having someone popular within your niche promote or give a positive review of your product or service will enhance your credibility within that field.

  Suppose you have a more generalized product or service that could appeal to a wider audience. In that case, you could also sponsor a social media influencer whose content isn't necessarily aligned with your business. Even if your product is more niche, within a larger, more generalized audience, there still could be many followers interested in your product or service if the social media influencer would be willing to promote it on their platform. Sponsoring a social media influencer or personality is a great way to get your business seen by many people and gain traffic to your website. Using the influencer's popularity and fan base will maximize your investment of giving the influencer a free product or service in exchange for promoting your business. This can pay off significantly in the short and long term and can immensely help your online presence.

• Offer Discounts

  While you may not always be able to afford to give away your products and services for free and remain profitable, you could offer discounts. Offering discounts can entice customers to purchase goods or services from your company and can help boost sales and traffic to your website. Discount codes can be shared with people who visit your website, subscribers to your email newsletter, and followers on social media. Creating a "limited time only" discount further attracts customers to your product and increases the likelihood of them making a purchase because they may not want to miss out on the discount. You can offer discounts to new visitors to your website and to new subscribers to your email newsletter to gain new customers. You can also offer discounts to existing customers through special offers and customer loyalty programs to help retain repeat customers. Offering discounts is a dependable way to increase sales and gain new customers.

• Host a Free Webinar

  Hosting a free informative webinar where you discuss topics regarding your industry, business, products, or services can be a great way to gain some interest in your business. If you have accumulated a high degree of knowledge on a topic relating to your business that can be useful to others, consider hosting a webinar in order to share it. You can also invite other presenters who may have information or products related to your webinar topic to participate. Those attending the webinar can ask any questions they have about your company, products, or services.

  There are several free or low-cost, easy-to-use webinar platforms that you can use to host your webinar. You can advertise your webinar in advance through your social media outlets and through your email newsletter. You can also offer special deals or discounts to those who sign up and attend your webinar. Hosting a webinar where you discuss helpful information is a great way to provide value to others at no cost to you while simultaneously attracting potential customers.

• Host a Free Class

  Hosting a free in-person class is another way to talk to potential customers about subject matter related to your business. If you have access to a physical space where you can host a class, this can be a great way to show people your product, perform demonstrations, and discuss things that are relevant to your industry. Collaborating with other local businesses in your area that are not in direct competition with you but are somehow related to your industry can create a more dynamic class/presentation. Involving multiple businesses can allow all of the companies to collectively draw upon each other's email lists, social media presence, and customer bases to attract new potential customers to their business. Those who attend the class can also be offered free samples, discounts, or other special promotions. Hosting a free course is a great way to get involved with the community and promote your business locally.

The low-cost business marketing ideas covered in this article can be efficient tools to help elevate your business and gain more recognition and sales. For more low-cost marketing ideas, please view Part I or Part II