Small businesses often have a tight market budget to work with, which can make promoting your business a challenge. If you're starting a small business, a major factor in it's success lies in how well you market it. Marketing attracts prospects, prospects become buyers, and buyers provide profit. But marketing is more than just putting your business name out into the world.

The good news is, there are plenty of ways for you to market yourself to your customers without spending any (or much) money. Now as a business owner, you probably don't have the time to research and identify these free marketing ideas, so I've taken care of that for you.

In this post, you'll find a ton of free and low-budget ways to market your business.

Create a free google my business account

For local businesses especially, a Google Business Profile has become one of the most effective free marketing strategies available. This free listing allows your business to show up on Google Maps, the local section of Google Search, and the right-side Knowledge Panel for branded searches.

Post (and engage) on social media

Increasing social media engagement and building a community online is a free way to grow your small business while expressing your brand’s personality and building trust with your audience. Create business accounts and participate in the big social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Tiktok and more. This is something you can do whenever you have a few minutes to spare.

Whatever your motivation for your posts, make sure you are regularly active and proactive on the social media accounts you create. Think: consistency, collaboration, and commitment.

Tag people (and brands) on social media

Tagging your loyal customers, brand evangelists, or even vendors on social media can broaden the organic reach of your business to a new potential audience, help you grow your following, and potentially even attain more clients. You should also encourage your followers to tag your social media handle or business location in their posts. You can also tag happy customers in your own posts, exposing your business to that customer’s network.

Use Hashtags

Another free marketing tactic that can broaden your reach is to incorporate hashtags into your social media posts — on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok for sure but also for Facebook and LinkedIn. Broad or trending hashtags can help you reinforce your brand identity, but they should not be the only hashtags you use. Location based hashtags are a must if you're a local business. And don’t forget custom hashtags! Apply a mix of hashtag types in your posts so they can reach the people for whom they are meant.

Post helpful videos

Video is a highly popular medium for consumers, and while it can cost you a lot to get a professional video produced and uploaded to YouTube, you don’t have to hire a professional. DIY video marketing is easy with today’s personal devices and social media apps like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.

Videos are especially great for demonstrating how to complete a task, but video marketing works in pretty much every industry. To strike that vital connection with your audience, you can create:

Instructional videos and how-tos
Product demos
Behind-the-scenes coverage of what it's like to work at your business
Slideshows with images and captions

Host a giveaway

Running a social media contest or giveaway is a smart and effective marketing strategy requiring minimal resources. You may need to cough up some dough for a prize, or offer a product service at no charge, but the number of participants and new potential leads you get will be well worth the price. Really tight on budget? You don’t technically need a super expensive prize to get participants.

There are a number of different social media contest types out there, but the main idea is to require registrants to like, follow, tag your business, or tag someone else on your post, to get your name out there and introduce potential clients to your services.

Don't underestimate LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a major social media site that is often under-utilized. Don’t just add network connections and sign out; enter into dialogue with the connections you make, share your posts and offers, join and contribute to forums, and share other quality content. By enabling other professionals to grow and educating your potential customers, you can build your brand and earn trust and respect in your company.

Set up a customer referral program

Offer existing customers a free product, free service, or some other reward for referring new customers. Remember, word-of-mouth is powerful stuff, and customers referred by other customers are also friends telling friends about your business and is incredibly valuable. Here are some ideas for getting more referrals from your existing customers and clients.

Create a referral program
Ask at the right time
Offer alternate ways to recommend you
Educate current customers about all products and services
Offer a referral commission

Create or update your business cards so they stand out

Get yourself some snazzy business cards, then give them to every person you lay eyes on. Every handshake should come with a business card. The more people who find out about your business, the better – even if it’s just a quick glance at a business card.

Connect with social media influencers for promotional posts

An influencer is someone who can influence others. In influencer marketing, that influential person collaborates with a brand to promote something. Connecting with social media influencers for promotional posts helps to reach their user base. In today’s digital world, influencers with niche audiences can often offer more value to brands. These people have dedicated and engaged groups of followers on social media.

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Creative Ways To Market Your Business