A lot of start-ups don’t have any outside funding. They have chosen to self-fund their company, which offers both advantages and disadvantages. While they maintain control (which is a good thing), one of the most difficult challenges is funding marketing, which, as we all know, is essential for growth. The good news is that you can use a variety of low-cost marketing methods and venues to gain traction without investing any money.
1- Social media
For start-ups social media are one of the best ways to promote your business because it doesn´t require spending a lot of money. We can´t underestimate the power of social media since nowadays everyone is using it. Much of your content or products can be shared on social media sites including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Tik Tok, and LinkedIn. As much as you work actively on your content as much as your audience grow faster. This will help you gain followers without paying for it. Furthermore, you will have a community who is more engaged and interested.
There is a variety of ways to promote your business using social media. For example, you can create a blog for your company, subscribe to other blogs similar to your topic and leave consistent comments on blog posts, make videos for your business and post them on YouTube, make a Pinterest account for your company to showcase your products, services, and other resources.
The quality of the pictures of your products on social media is very important to your business´s marketing. This is why you should use a high quality of image and take photos in beautiful places.
2- Podcasts
Podcasting is one of the fastest-growing digital forms, with universal use across all age groups which makes it a perfect easy way to promote to your start-up.
Podcasts are always searching for guests to speak on a variety of topics. In fact, there are a lot of topics you can talk about in podcasts, you can discuss many subjects such as marketing, start-up life, how to succeed online businesses, digital marketing, and more. After you’ve identified your areas of expertise (which everyone has), you can pitch yourself.
On social media especially on Facebook, there are several “Find a Guest, Be a Guest” podcast groups. You can then look through the “asks” and apply to podcasts that are in your area of interest. The beauty of podcasts resides in the fact that most people don’t charge you anything to be a guest; they are evergreen, and you get to tell a complete storyline about your journey and business most of the time. In addition, you will have content to share and repurpose, which is an added plus.
3- Blogs
Blogs are one of the best yet low costed forms of marketing for your start-up. Adding a blog area to your website might help you with a variety of tasks. First of all, it has the ability to increase visitors to your website (assuming you have baked in some SEO). In addition, by the time it will elevate you to the status of a leader in your industry or area of expertise. And finally, a blog is the perfect place to tell deeper stories. You can use your blog to talk about your interviews and podcasts with other founders, yet you can also introduce the products or services you sell, share tips about your work and discuss topics related to your domain.
This can give you an opportunity to get more people interested to your content and make your products more popular.
4- Livestreaming
There are a variety of platforms dedicated only to livestreaming such as Talkshoplive, Shop LIT Live and Spin where you can do lives to share stories or pieces of advice with people and surely you can introduce your products or services.
The majority of this platforms are free to join, also it is a low risked option for small businesses since it takes a percentage of sales revenue.
If you sell a product, this platform can be a perfect location to share your stories in videos in a creative and fun way. You’ll need to feel at ease in front of the camera and write down your story.
The good thing about these platforms is that you can perform most of them on a regular basis once a week for example, so you’ll find it easy to get into a routine and figure out what works best for you. The most important thing is to focus on the image you give while doing the live you need to be smiling and to feel comfortable in front of the camera. Also, sound and image quality must be good, this is why you need to have a good lighting, you can use a ring light and a good set up.
5- Partnerships
Partnering with like-minded brands is another great option to expand your consumer base and audience. By working with businesses that share your values, you will have a lot of opportunities to attract new customers. The partners can be selling the same products or services, but you support the same views and values.
There is a lot you can do to promote each other, from giveaways to gift with sales to generating content together such as blogging, Instagram Lives, or video interviews.
And if your clients appreciate your brand, there’s a good chance they’ll like a similar brand with the same values. The trick is to ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to the needs for each brand, so that no one feels like they contributed more than another.
Final words
To sum up, you should know that in order to promote your products and gain customers without spending money, you’ll need to be a little more hands-on and diligent, but it’s not impossible and the 5 techniques mentioned can make it less difficult. And you’ll discover that those different methods often feed off one another, making it easier over time.
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