Building a business doesn’t have to be expensive. You don’t always need to spend a fortune on pay-per-click ads or SEO services to get noticed – at least to begin with. Instead, you can use free marketing strategies to get the ball rolling.

In this post, we take a look at some of the tactics that you can use, without the need to hand over any of your precious capital. Check them out below.

1. Set Up Your Google My Business Account

You can think of setting up a Google My Business (GMB) account as having a similar effect to regular SEO activities, without the time and money investment. GMB is essentially free and gives you a leg up on the world’s largest search engine virtually overnight.

You can set up a GMB account using a simple tool provided by Google. Once you prove your address, the search giant will display your business information on Maps when users type in relevant keywords. You can display your telephone number, address, type of services you offer, opening and review rating – all of which encourage people to click through.

2. Attend An Industry Networking Event With Marketing In Mind

Going to conferences can be a great way to drum up interest in your business. Entry fees are often low or non-existent, but the value of contacts you make can be tremendous. For instance, you can learn inexpensive branding strategies to get your business’s message out, or you can partner with other firms to get your goods and services in front of more people. Often, having B2B contacts lets you access better wholesale prices and source the talent you need to thrive.

3. Host A Class To Assist Marketing

In today’s information economy, people want insights. They need professionals – industry authorities – who can guide them towards their goals. Depending on your experience and role, this knowledge-giving professional could be you. You could be the one putting on an event and creating an authoritative brand.

To build interest, you could post information on community bulletin boards in grocery stores, coffee shops, colleges and professional education establishments. You could also partner with local events and become a speaker.

4. Launch A Webinar Series

Webinars are a wonderful tool for promoting your business because they allow you to show your human side. You’re not just a faceless person, hidden behind a wall of website branding and advertisements. Instead, you’re someone who other people can relate to.

Webinars do several things that help you build your business:

• Prove to your audience that you understand their needs
• Give you time to explain the benefits of your products
• Show your human side, building trust
• Demonstrate your expertise

What’s more, attracting people to attend a webinar is incredibly cost-effective. Just post details on your social media account or include times and links in your email marketing.

Custom ecommerce web design by agencies integrates webinar features into your website. This way, even if you’re running an online store, you can still offer customers value directly.

5. Write Your Own Press Releases As Part Of Your Marketing

You can go to marketing agencies and ghostwriting services to write press releases for you. But, as you probably already know, you have to pay.

Here’s an idea: write your own. Once you get the hang of press release format, they’re actually quite easy to do. Adopt a neutral tone, talk about your business in the third-person, and include quotes. Choose a newsworthy angle and you’re pretty much ready to go.

Once you complete the copy, submit it to a free press release distribution service. The quality of syndication (the sites the service will publish your press release on), usually aren’t as high as paid services. However, it still gets your message out there, which is always a good thing.

6. Help Others For Free

You’re in business to make money, so the idea of helping others for free seems crazy. However, it can work if you get it right.

You’re not a charity. But if you give away a sample product or a small amount of your time, you can prove your value. Prospects are then much more likely to use you in the future. Just make it clear that it’s a one-off. You won’t be giving up your time out of the kindness of your heart in the future.

7. Create A Free Resource For Your Marketing

Do you know something that other people in your sector don’t? Are you able to produce a resource for your audience that your competitors haven’t yet?

If so, then it’s time to get busy. Creating free resources is a powerful way to attract people to your business and brand. Providing free downloadable tips sheets or ebooks lets you capture email addresses while introducing your audience to what you do.

8. Build A Referral Program

Referral programs aren’t free to run, but they are cheap to set up. The basic idea is to get your customers to spread the good news about your brand for you, so you don’t have to. It’s like outsourcing your marketing department. It works because prospects are much more likely to trust existing customers than they are conventional advertisements.

To build a referral program, you’ll need to offer an incentive to customers who refer leads to you. You might offer a fixed fee – say $100 for every new client they win – or a share of the value of the client, perhaps 5 percent.

9. Initiate A Tweetstorm To Aid Marketing

As a brand, you’re not trying to become a drama queen. There are already enough of those on Twitter. But if you can cook up a tweetstorm, then you can create a lot of buzz.

The best strategy here is to follow news in your niche and then make careful, well-reasoned comments on events as they unfold. If other people in the twitterverse find your contributions interesting, they’ll start following you, increasing your reach.

10. Cozy Up To Influencers In Your Niche

Lastly, you might want to try ingratiating yourself with top influencers and reaching out to bloggers in your niche. Try to get them interested in what you’re doing by offering something unique that their audience will appreciate. It might be that you offer a product purity level unsurpassed in your industry. Or you could be doing something totally new. Just make it exciting and valuable to the influencer.

So, there you have it: our ten free marketing strategies to build your business. Which will you use?