Marketing is essential for attracting customers, however good marketing needn’t have to cost a fortune. In fact, thanks to the internet, it’s possible to do a lot of your own marketing for free. Here are just five marketing strategies that cost practically nothing.

Build your own website

The prospect of building one’s own website may seem scary to some people, but the likes of WordPress have made it easy – you don’t need any coding knowledge and can use simple drag-and-drop customisation. Most importantly it’s free to use these website builders.

You’ll still need to pay for a domain – fortunately there are companies out there that can provide cheap hosting with free SSL. Such custom-built websites and cheap hosting plans are perfectly adequate for small companies.

Stay active on social media

Social media has become another popular marketing medium for businesses.

It’s free to create a Facebook and Twitter page and you can then encourage all your existing customers to follow you and use it as a way of keeping them up to date with news and promotions.

You can also use social media to attract new customers – this could require paying a little money to promote posts.

Having a strong social media presence can also be important for your overall reputation and many customers may trust you more if you have a sizable following.

You can pay a social media marketing company to handle this aspect for you, but it is generally unnecessary if you’re a small company.

Embrace blogging and vlogging

Blogging and vlogging are two other free methods of marketing. Blogging involves writing posts on your site – usually with the purpose of informing or giving advice – in order to build your web presence and your reputation as an expert.

It’s also a chance to incorporate keywords, helping to boost your search rankings and attract new customers.

• As for vlogging, this involves creating video content.

• Like blog posts, you can use these videos to give advice and build your reputation online.

It could also be a chance to advertise products and services with walkthroughs and demos. Just make sure that you’re using a good quality camera and microphone.

Do some cross-promotion

Cross-promotion involves teaming up with another company owners and promoting their brand in exchange for them promoting yours. This can allow you both to gain extra customers by endorsing one another.

It’s best to cross-promote with a company that isn’t a direct competitor.

They should however still share a link to your trade so that you can more easily promote them (a plumbing company may decide to cross-promote with an electrician for example, giving that many customers wanting plumbing work may also want electrical work if they’re doing renovations).

You can cross-promote for free by using social media, blogging, blogging and by simply recommending their company in person.

Encourage your customers to do your marketing

You can also get your customers to do your marketing for you. Online reviews are a huge source of business – most consumers nowadays won’t use a company unless it has good reviews.

By encouraging happy customers to leave positive reviews, you can boost the reputation of your business and attract more consumers. Happy customers may even gain you new business simply by recommending you to their friends. You could even reward customers that gain you new clientele with a discount or a small cash reward.

© New To HR