One thought that runs through your mind as a business owner or starts up is, “how can I promote my business for free?” This thought is always in the minds of every entrepreneur as marketing is the first thing to consider after branding your business.
There are different methods to promote your business online for free. You don’t have to put a hole in your pocket when getting started with online promotion.
This article will show you easy steps on how to promote your business for free by using online platforms that are well known for your online business promotion.
Video marketing
Video marketing is one of the best ways to get your business to a targeted audience.
if you know the right steps to take, then you are sure going to hit the G-spot.
 Making a short video is easy as you don’t have to be a professional filmmaker to get started; however, you have to be creative and innovative.
What you need to create a short video
Having a camera makes things easier and clear, but you are on a low budget, so you need to cut cost on creating your marketing videos. If you don’t have a camera, you can still put up an excellent video by using your mobile phone.
There are loads of apps on the Apple and Playstore that will come handy when creating your videos, some of these apps includes
· Viva video
· Kinemaster
· Animated text
· Inshot
These are apps that you can easily use to add some effect to your marketing videos and make it outstanding even with a low budget.
Now that you have created your video, where to promote the video should be the next point of call. There are platforms where you can easily upload your videos and get mind-blowing tractions.
Some of the platforms include
· Youtube
· Facebook
· Instagram
· Twitter
· Linkedin
When uploading your videos, use hashtags as they are essential when it comes to SEO.
Business listing website
These are the website that you can list your business in base on niche and categories.
A business listing website is a valuable tool that efficiently directs people to your business without spending extra time monitoring it. A good example is Facebook, which gives you the chance to represent your business on its platform.
Some free business listing website includes.
· Facebook
· Instagram
· Twitter
· Yelp
· Linkedin
· Yellow bot
· Manta
· Glassdoor
· City search · Foursquare
Importance of business listing site
Brand awareness: Business listing site increase your brand awareness by letting people know what you do. People are continually searching the web for specific service and product. When you list your business on such site, it quickly shows up on search engine.
It will be an excellent advantage for you as it will create an awareness of your brand as these people might use your service or products in the future.
Brings prospects: You are sure to gain new customers to your business. People who search for similar products can find your business on the search result even though they didn’t search precisely for you
They might find your business appealing and decides to check you out by contacting you to see if you can give them what they want.
Boost your reputation: the first thing people do before buying service is researching your product review to know what people are saying about you.
When you represented your business on a listing site, people tend to drop their experience or a review of your business.
You don’t have to be afraid of bad reviews, its something that must be present in businesses as you can’t keep everybody happy.
If your products or services are good, people will surely give a positive review of your business, and this will further boost confidence in what you have to offer.
Boos SEO: when your business is on a business listing website, you are sure to experience a boost in your SEO. It means that your business will show on Google first or the second page, depending on how far you have gone.
Having your business on many business listing websites is a better chance for your business to show up on search engine.
Blogging
If you have not started a blog for your business, then this is the right time to consider starting one. Blogging is one of the best ways to promote your business and gain a firsthand online presence.
You do not have to spend so much money blogging for your business, as there are simple platforms to get you started.
Where to start your Blog
Creating your personal blog to give you control of all the functionalities on your blog will go a long way to help you achieve maximum success. There are different platforms where you can start up your blog immediately.
WordPress: This is a blogging platform that is very easy to use; you can start blogging within an hour as it is easy to set up. To get started with a WordPress blog, you need to buy hosting (a place to house your website), and domain name (your business name).
You can use Namecheap when purchasing your blog hosting and domain name as they have amazing packages and excellent customer support.
After getting your hosting and domain name, you can choose from the different themes on the WordPress theme section to give your blog the desired look.
Blogger: Blogger is a free blog platform owned by Google; it’s free and also easy to use. To set up your blog on the blogger platform, you need a Gmail account, or you can contact epicvibesng to help you set up your blog at the best rate.
There are loads of free themes on the internet that will give your blog a great view. You must get a domain name for your blogger’s blog as this will make you look more professional to your prospects.
Other blogging options that already have built audience are steemit and medium. You can signup with your email and start blogging with your business-related contents.
Where to get contents for your Blog
Writing can sometimes be difficult, but if you have excellent writing skills, then you can write your blog contents yourself.
If you find it hard to write or probably you are too busy to write blog contents; then you can get it on a platform like Fiverr.
Fiverr is a freelancing platform where you can find loads of freelancers who are willing to write for you for as low as $5 for a certain number of words.
Blogging can help you promote your business and make you stand out amongst your competitors.
Social media
Social media is one of the best platforms to promote your business; it gives you diverse opportunities at little or no cost.
More businesses are now taking up social media as their primary medium of promotion as their targeted audiences are readily available on these platforms.
The best social media sites and messaging app to promote your business
· Facebook
· Instagram
· Twitter
· Whatsapp
· Messager
· Telegram
Facebook:
Facebook which was primarily built for fun has gradually turned into a business hub for business owners. Both small and big companies have turned to Facebook as a significant platform to promote, relate, and support their customer.
There are three simple ways to promote your business on facebook for free, these includes
ü Faceook wall
ü Pages
ü Groups
Facebook wall: almost everyone has a facebook account, where they relate with friends by posting pictures, and commenting on post of others.
You can take advantage of your facebook account by posting contents that give solutions to problems that your business can solve.
Posting such contents will draw people who have similar problems to your post. If you add a link to your post, they might go further to click your link to check out what you have to offer.
Page
Creating a Facebook page for your business and adequately optimizing it for the search engine will give you a significant advantage over your competitors.
Your Facebook page represents your business as it’s the first place people will check to see if you have a good review.
Make sure you post engaging contents on your page at least twice daily to keep up with your prospects. When you relent in posting, your audience might lose interest in your business.
Share your page link with friends to get more likes, ask them to help you share it as more likes will boost trust for your business.
Groups
Although groups work more for small businesses, it should not be overlooked by bigger enterprises as it’s a medium to bring targeted audience together. You may be wondering how a group can do this; it’s simple as people search for groups of interest.
If your business is about music, then you should create a music and fun group, people who are interested in music will join your facebook group.
The amazing part of a facebook group is that it gives you a chance to build your email list. There is provision for people to answer questions when joining a group, you can ask them to drop their email to get an update on upcoming events.
Creating a group on Facebook is free, and more feature added every day as pages can now join groups on facebook. Take advantage of this fantastic opportunity to promote your business.
Instagram is more of an images platform, so, if you want to promote on this platform, your images have to be clear and innovative.
A platform like canva can help you create fantastic image stories and infographics to use on Instagram.
It will be great if you have a good number of followers as they will gradually convert into customers if your social media manager engage them audience well with the relevant post.
When promoting your business on Instagram, make sure you use the relevant hashtags as this will help you reach out to more audience.
Using Twitter to promote your business is another excellent way to reach more people, do you know why?
Twitter’s has a good level of post engagement than other platforms.
Base on research done on twitter, it has been discovered that post with links gets more engagement on the platform.
It is advisable to add a shortened link of your blog post to your tweets.
Another great way that can help you engage your audience is by using hashtags on your tweets. You can decide to create your hashtag and trend it or use an existing trending hashtag to reach out to people.
Whatsapp has high potentials when promoting your business as you are closer to the customers at this point, you might be wondering how close? Having a customer or prospect number is the closest thing you can ever have.
Take advantage of the Whatsapp story to showcase your business or, you can share short contents and add your blog link.
You can also create a Whatsapp group and post contents about your business there.
Don’t make the group all about your business, discuss other things to keep the group alive.
Messenger
Using the messenger chat is an excellent way to reach out to customers, create brand awareness, and sell your product and service.
Spamming your prospect can be annoying so, it is not advisable. A great way to help them see what you have to offer is the messenger story.
The platform gives all your facebook friends who are on messenger the chance to see your service and products. You can add videos or images as long it works for you.
Telegram
If you want to get your entire prospect in one place, then you should consider creating a telegram group or channel. Unlike Whatsapp and messenger, telegram does not have stories functionalities, but it can accommodate a massive number of audiences either in a group or channel. If you can get people to join your telegram group, it will be a great medium to sell out your products and service.
Podcasting
Just like creating a short video, short audios will also go a long way to sell out your business. It’s easy to create a podcast with your phone.
You can use audio editing software like Audacity to edit and add some sound effects. There are several platforms where you can post your podcast and reach a lot of people.
Soundcloud a great platform to host your podcast, and you can embed it on your WordPress blog.
You can convert your blog post to a podcast or video, depending on what you want.
Conclusion
When you take action and follow these simple steps, you are sure to have a boost in your sales and still save a lot of money for other necessary functions in your business.
