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As a business, it’s quite a relief knowing that you can use the internet for free advertising. You can advertise your target customers without a budget.
Are you wondering how? Is it effective? The reason for this guide is to help you advertise your business to your customers for free. With the internet, you will reach clients miles away from your business without spending money.
The Covid 19 pandemic has affected most businesses, and some have been forced to shut down. But, this shouldn’t be a scare anymore. We have listed the free advertising ideas that you can implement in your business in 2022.
Let’s dive in!
Free Business Advertising For Businesses in 2022
Gone are days when businesses relied on banners, brochures, and newspapers to advertise. Although it doesn’t mean that they are ineffective, they are traditional advertising methods that cost money and are slow.
But, with the internet, it’s easier to create awareness and attract new customers. Over 2.14 billion buyers make their purchases online. So, how do you ensure that your business attracts customers?
This article guides you through free advertising. Whether you have been running a business or you’re a small business, these ideas will work for you.
Let’s get started!
- Social media marketing
As a social media user, how often do you come across businesses advertising products and services? Are you currently following a business on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Youtube?
In 2020, the world statistic of internet users was more than 3.6 billion users, and the number is expected to rise to 4.41 billion users in 2025. You do not need startup capital to create a social media account.
It is also free to create a business account. To get started, identify the platforms that suit your business. For instance, if your business is B2B, the best social media platform to use is LinkedIn.
If you’re in B2C, you can use Facebook and Instagram. With social media, you can market through organic posting as well as ads. Organic posting is free, and you do not spend money.
With ads, you’re free to set the bidding amount. The benefit of using campaigns is that it’s a targeted form of advertising. That is, you select the age, demographic, and location to promote a business to a specific target audience.
- Video Marketing
If you’re not aware of it, video marketing is an effective form of free advertising. A majority of internet users prefer watching a video to reading texts.
The number of internet users keeps rising. Youtube users are over 2 billion active. Most people use it to market businesses, entertainment, get information, or earn money.
As a business, you can create quality video that offer insights, how-to videos, marketing, or entertainment. Youtube does not charge you to create an account and post. Creating high-quality videos also helps to create a strong brand.
As a business owner, you can market for free on Youtube by using videos. Your clients are likely to share the content on other platforms if they find your content interesting.
- Start Blogging
With a content CMS like WordPress, it is free to create a blog and start posting. All you need is high-quality and relevant content that will attract your readers to keep visiting your pages.
Blogging is a free advertising idea that most businesses are currently adopting. One of the success factors of a blog is to make sure that you offer value to your readers.
In fact, you can implement the written content and video format to your blog. Use the blogs to give more information, and improve conversion to your website.
For instance, you can use the blog section to create content that answers your client’s questions. A tip to a successful blog is to add relevant keywords to the content.
- Email Marketing
Sending personalized email messages to potential clients increases conversion for a business. For instance, for an eCommerce business, email marketing helps recover lost sales from abandoned carts.
Email marketing does not need to cost you money. With a software, you can schedule emails, then forward them at a specific time. Most of the email marketing softwares has free and premium pricing plans.
If you deliver quality and value, your customers will be open to sharing their contact information. For example, if you’re running a blog post and your content is user-centered, your readers will subscribe to your newsletter for more content.
If you’re looking for a free advertising idea to implement in your business, you can consider email marketing.
- Carry out search engine optimization
SEO is about optimizing a website to improve visibility and increase ranking. It is a broad category that involves on-page, off-page, and technical SEO.
A free plugin to use for WordPress website optimization is Yoast. It has both free and premium pricing. Optimizing a website attracts organic traffic to a website.
Tips to optimize a website for SEO are creating high-quality and relevant content, creating links, improving page speed, optimizing images, and mobile responsiveness.
- Monetize Instagram
Instagram is a social media platform that businesses are using to advertise, promote and convert potential clients. Besides the free advertising that earns you organic traffic, you can also sponsor ads.
Instagram is very diverse. Users can post video content on Reels, feed, and IGTV. Instagram is different from Facebook as its content is often visual. Therefore, before you publish your posts, make sure that you are using high-quality images and videos.
There’s so much you can achieve with a free advertising site. You can use Instagram to create awareness, attract and convert clients.
- Run Ads
Although not completely free, running a campaign requires you to have a budget. So, before you run an ad, you need to have a budget. Running ads has become flexible for businesses, including small businesses.
How often do you open an app, browser, or social media and come across an ad? The benefit of using ads to promote a business is that they are more targeted than organic postings.
For instance, if you’re running an ad for your furniture store, you do not need to target people below 25 years. You have the advantage of selecting the specific audience that is likely to click on your ads.
- Guest blogging
Guest blogging is another form of free advertising where the content creator publishes content on someone else’s blog. If you have content from your website that you want people to know, you can add the links on the blog.
Most creatives will create a guest blog for established blogs. You interact with the audience, and if your content resonates with them, they are likely to check your website.
Guest blogging is free. What you need is to identify top-performing blogs with high domain authority and reach out to them. Make sure that you create relevant content that offers value to the readers.
- Have live sessions
As a social media user, how often do you join in live? As a store owner, you can go live from your personal profile or business page. The purpose of a live is to engage the audience, answer questions, promote an offer or answer how-to questions.
With a business live, you want your clients to have the best services from your store. Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube are the most popular social platforms to go live.
- Design a website
As businesses continue to embrace technology, the easier it becomes to market and reach out to clients. Most consumers search for a product or service online before making a purchase or walking to a store.
So, how do you ensure that you remain visible? By designing a website. When a client wants to shop, they start by checking for the products and shops online. For an eCommerce store, you can use Shopify to create a website.
A website represents your store online. Ecommerce is leading in retail purchases globally. Currently, it is at 14.1%, and the statistics are expected to rise to 23% in 2023.
The statistics further show that 67% of the shoppers shop using their mobile devices. When designing a website, make sure that it is mobile responsive, easy to use, and optimized for search engines.
If it’s an eCommerce site, the essential pages, like the product page and cart, should be easily accessible. A website is one of the free advertising sites where you can promote offers and discounts.
- Answer Questions on public platforms
Take advantage of free advertising on public platforms like Reddit and Quora. For instance, you own a business that deals with coffee machines.
You come across a discussion where someone wants to know the best coffee machine to buy within a specific budget. As the store owner, you can offer insights first on coffee machines then later share your options and the prices. This way, you’re also advertising your business.
Being part of the public platforms helps expose your business to potential clients who did not know your business existed. With the online competition and struggle to remain visible, you need to have a strong online presence.
- Advertise on Google Merchant Center
Have you thought about how you can use Google to market your business? An example is by using Google merchant center. A Google merchant center is a dashboard where you manage your business appearance.
The primary goal is to upload and maintain product information, including prices and pictures, that appear on searches on Google shopping. It also makes it easy for the merchant to manage a store from a central dashboard.
Google Merchant is free to use. However, you only make payments when a user clicks on your ads. If you already have your website ready, you can add your products and reach millions of people.
- Google my business
Google has several options for retailers and businesses to explore. With Google my Business, you can engage your clients in Google maps and search. It is also free to create an account.
To get started with Google my business, you need to have a Gmail account. On the platform, you can post your business offers and photos to attract potential customers.
One of the success factors for businesses is customer engagement. With Google my Business, you can reach out to your clients by calling, leaving a review, or messaging.
In addition, you can monitor how your audience connects with you through website visits, clicks, calls, bookings, and following.
- Product Giveaways
Everyone loves a good discount, giveaway, or offer. Giveaways are a form of free advertising that attracts new customers to your business.
For instance, you want to replace the old products in your shop with the latest items. So, you decide to have a giveaway session on your social media platform.
After the giveaway contest, you can talk about the new products that you want to launch in your store. Giveaways attract new customers and help to build a brand.
- Use Infographics
Most internet users are visual. Infographics play a crucial role in advertising. Infographics are visuals that summarize long-form content to capture important information.
For instance, you can post an infographic on a social media platform. Instead of posting plain visuals with lengthy captions, you can create an infographic instead.
Infographics offer free advertising because they have logos, images, text, and colors from your business. They also pass information faster as compared to long-form content like blogs.
- Webinars
Standing out from your competition and remaining visible online should be a top priority. The advantage of online advertising is that you have so many platforms to test.
If you want to save on advertising cost, you may consider holding a webinar. You can use it to educate your customers as well as advertise other products. If you’re clients like your content, they are likely to convert and shop from you. Most webinars are usually 30 mins to 1 hour long.
- Respond to reviews
To gain credibility for your business, encourage your clients to give a review. It can be through online platforms or word of mouth. Also, make sure you respond to all the reviews.
Whether a review is negative or positive, it helps to build trust with new clients. Besides, you can also advertise your business from the reviews section.
- Market offline
Most of the free advertising ideas above are online methods of promoting a business. But is it also possible to market offline? In case you do not know, you can also market offline by printing banners and flyers.
The traditional marketing methods are also effective. For instance, you can give out flyers to customers to share with friends and other interested customers.
- Offer merchandise
Business profiles have so many ways of exploring free advertising. Customers want to feel appreciated and acknowledged. You can offer a branded cup, shirt, book, or pen to customers who meet a specific buying target.
Merchandise offers free advertising for businesses. Here’s how it works. A potential customer comes across a branded item from a friend. She’s interested in the brand and wants to know what it offers. As a result, they end up discovering your business and finally converting.
- Network on public forums
Attend forums that are within your business niche. For instance, if an organization is looking for business profiles to contribute to a topic, you can offer insights as a brand.
Also, network with the audience to educate them about your business and what you offer. Make sure that you understand the audience before you begin advertising.
- Advertise on TikTok
TikTok is free to create an account and advertise. It is a social media platform for entertainment and marketing. To get started, download the app on your phone and create a user profile.
With TikTok, you create short videos and use hashtags. As a business, you can hop on a relevant challenge to promote your products and services. It is a free advertising online platform that has grown in popularity.
Like other social media platforms, you can share how-to content, funny videos, or behind-the-scenes videos.
- Repurpose your content
Do you ever find yourself running out of content ideas? Worry no more because you can repurpose your content. That is, you can use the blog content and repurpose it for TikTok, Youtube, or webinars.
Repurposing saves you from a content block. Stick to your advertising goals and use the content to create awareness and attract new customers.
Is Free Advertising Effective?
Whether you’re a small business, enterprise, or a big organization, the free advertising tips above will work for you. The advantage of advertising online is that you have tools and platforms to use and find out what works for you.
If you’re looking for ideas on how to advertise for free, we got your back. Make sure that you include either of the advertising tips above in your business plan template.
The benefit of online advertising is that it’s free or it requires a minimal budget. Before you start advertising, have a plan on how to go about it and understand your audience. Free advertising is effective for all business types.
