Most small businesses struggle to maintain a significant marketing budget. Of course, the work of self-promotion should never stop, and driven entrepreneurs don’t let money—or lack thereof—stand in their way. Fortunately, there are plenty of opportunities to get free advertising for a small business.
Ideas to Get Free Advertising for a Small Business
- Optimize your SEO for local search so people will find you when they’re looking for your products or services in the area (especially with “near me” searches).
- Give highly valuable answers to questions related to your industry on sites like Quora and Reddit.
- Attend regional professional networking events; with all the emphasis on digital marketing these days, sometimes we forget about the power of in-person meetings.
- Post digital coupons on your social media pages and encourage your followers to share them.
- Find Facebook pages that your target market likes and leave thoughtful, relevant comments as your business page.
- Write guest posts for blogs your target audience follows that share your industry expertise in a non-self-promotional way (just be sure to get a link back to your brand’s website).
- Approach other local, non-competitive businesses that are tangentially related to yours about trading backlinks to each other’s websites on published content.
- Publish informative articles on LinkedIn, particularly if you’re B2B.
- Provide sample products or services to local bloggers with significant followings and other influencers who reach people in your target market.
- Be proactive about getting positive reviews from your existing customers or clients.
- Leave reviews or testimonials for your vendors, partners, and other businesses you work with, and let them know that you did it if necessary; they’ll all be grateful, and some will reciprocate.
- Seek out opportunities to be interviewed as a subject matter expert by journalists, bloggers, podcasters, etc. to get your name out and build credibility.
- Look for opportunities to speak at public business or industry-related events; it’s not just great for exposure, it also significantly boosts your brand authority.
- Make sure there’s a link to your website on all your social media pages, in your email signature, on your business card, and anywhere else you can put it.
- Volunteer with an area charity organization, and get employees involved, too; the group is sure to thank your business for its contributions publicly.
