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How To Begin Marketing Your Business For Free
You don't need a big budget to advertise your business, just big creativity.
The Story
In 1978 in his photography studio situated next to the Milwaukee airport, Mark Gubin painted 6 foot high white letters on his black roof that said, "Welcome to Cleveland".
Wait, didn't he live in Milwaukee? Yes! And that's the point. The sign created quite a stir and brief moments of confusion for thousands of airline passengers and crew that believed they were about to land in Milwaukee Wisconsin, but were greeted by a "Welcome to Cleveland" sign.
The stunt was more of a joke than an advertising ploy, but Mark created an emotional, memorable experience for thousands of air travelers for nearly 30 years. It created decades of fun, free press as people landing in Milwaukee would see the sign and wonder if they took the wrong flight and were actually landing in Cleveland. Influenced by his use of free advertising spaces, companies like FlyBy Ads were born to sell the rooftops of manufacturing and other warehouses near airports as prime ad space all around the world. Now it's quite common to see rooftop ads near airports.
The Lesson
The story above highlights three critical aspects of creative marketing that business owners must always consider:
- Creative messaging that draws emotion.
- Percent (%) of voice
- The law of diminishing returns
Wherever your add is placed, whenever you send a message out to the universe - that message must be clear, simple and emotionally charged. And in today's short attention span world, it has never been more important to be concise. If you had to explain your product in one sentence, could you do it? If that sentence had to be less than 5 words, would it make sense? Early on in your marketing, finding brief key words that capture attention in a way that is unique to your brand is paramount.
Get out a piece of paper and begin writing your message. Write a paragraph if necessary to fully capture why people should buy your product. Then begin to cross out words and lines. Create a short, attention grabbing and concise message that tells customers why they should look at your product.
Got it? Now let's put that message somewhere. But where?
Our second bullet here talks about the where and how to make sure your message is heard. Percent of voice is the % of the total medium that your ad takes up. When our friend in Milwaukee painted the message on his roof, he owned 100% of the advertising voice in that particular air traffic route. If you were on a plane flying over his building, you would see roofs with no words and then all of the sudden his white letters on the black roof would jump out at you. That's the power of being the only marketer in a new medium. For a brief moment, you have 100% of voice.
Imagine if every roof along that route contained other messages on the same black rooftops using the same white letters. Let's assume 99 other buildings next to Mark's did the exact same thing. His percent of voice would drop from 100% to 1%. You may not even notice the "Welcome To Cleveland" message in the sea of all the other 99 rooftop messages.
That concept leads us to point number three: The law of diminishing returns.
The law of diminishing returns is an economic principle that proves, over time, that as more factors of any production are added in to a process, the overall output decreases.
In a marketing context, production is the work the ad does to effectively generate revenue and the output is the revenue generated. Our friend Mark in Milwaukee creates a perfect metaphor to help us understand the law of diminishing returns in marketing. What if Mark's sign read, "Welcome to Cleveland, please visit MarkPhotography.com". By adding more factors to his market message (the short statement "please visit MarkPhotography.com), the weight of the message becomes watered down and the overall output of the message's ability to drive emotion or action is diminished. Just by adding a request to visit to his website, the entire feeling of the message changes. More factors = less output.
Then, as the neighbors learn about Mark's ad and begin to use their roofs as billboards (more factors added), the output of Mark's message declines even further. More factors added = less output.
In business - and especially in marketing - the value of any marketing message declines over time. Occasionally there are marketing messages and mediums that last for years. Every Kiss Begins with Kay. Just Do It. I'm Lovin' It. Etc. But even the giants like Kay Jewelers, Nike and McDonalds have to change their marketing regularly.
In short - when you are in the business of marketing - you never arrive. There is no destination. There are only brief stops on a never ending journey. Marketing is a series of actions that you are constantly monitoring and refining. Marketing is a living, breathing animal that requires constant nurturing. Marketing must be invented and reinvented over and over again if your business is going to succeed.
Like any great journey - it begins with a few simple steps. Don't overcomplicate it - just settle on a basic marketing strategy on day 1, measure the results, learn, adapt and start again.
Below is a list of dozens of free and low cost actions you can take to begin marketing today. When you introduce each item, ask yourself the following questions:
- How will I measure if this method is working?
- What is the goal of my measurement in the first day or week?
Write down how you will measure success, write down your goal and then update your scorecard daily. Are you reaching your goal? Why or why not? What can you change to improve?
Then, make the change, set the new goal and measure again.
And just like that, your company's marketing department has been developed. If you need help organizing your plan, creating your scorecard or executing any of the marketing opportunities below, our team can help.
One final point before we get to our list of free mediums. Remember that because these mediums are free - they are full of other voices. Your % of voice in most of the mediums below is very low. The population is large and so your % of voice doesn't need to be significant to generate sales, but getting your voice above all the other voices requires your messaging to be entirely new, or novel, or something never seen before. This is why we spent so much time on concise messaging on step 1. Your message needs to rise above the clutter. Do you think that it will? Will it have a "Welcome to Cleveland" effect on people? If you have doubts, then return to step number 1 and start again.
20+ Free Marketing Opportunities:
- Create social media pages including:
- TikTok
- YouTube
- X (previously Twitter)
- Any others
- Make a social media post regularly
- Make a social media story regularly
- Make a social media reel regularly
- Respond to every customer social media comment with a reply comment.
- Interact on other people's posts via comments so people see you.
- Use hashtags with each social media post to appear before a broader audience.
- Set up a Facebook (Meta) Shop
- Sell your product on Facebook Marketplace
- Sell your product on Etsy.
- Sell your product on Ebay.
- Ask customers in person to share emails/texts
- Set up automated emails/texts for subscribers
- Set up an Etsy store
- Set up an eBay store
- Create a blog:
- Write content (articles) that link to your page/product.
- Post your articles in other chat groups. (Reddit, LinkedIn, Quora, Etc.)
- Use AI to help you write articles quickly - but always proofread them. You'll be surprised how often AI is wrong.
- Join business groups or other social media forums that allow you to promote your business for free. Post in those places regularly.
- Use your personal social media and ask friends to spread the word.
- Use branding stickers in your car windows.
- Find synergistic businesses with a similar customer base:
- Create cross promotions
- If you have extra inventory, see if you can put it on another business' shelf instead of at your home where nobody sees it.
- Put your product on other Farmer's Market booths - so your product is in more places during market hours. Offer to put other booth's product on your stand, increasing your exposure by 100%+
- Ask to be included in their emails/promotions in return for a % of sales.
- Throw a party with your friends. Not to sell them - just to share your product so they know what you do. You'll be surprised at the referrals that come from parties months later.
- Don't be afraid to talk about your business with anyone and everyone. You should be verbal and proud about what you do.
- Search online for entrepreneurship podcasts and ask to be a guest. Podcasts are always looking for unique interviews and stories to tell.
- Turn your car into a billboard by making a large sign and parking your car near an event exit or other community gathering where would-be customers will be congregating.
- Add a signature line to your emails that includes your website and maybe even a discount.
10+ Marketing Resources Under $500/yr:
- Develop a sampling program - give small portion, low-cost samples of your product to those in your customer demographic.
- Build a transactional website - Shopify.
- Set up an email collector - Mailchimp/Shopify.
- Build automated emails for new email subscribers - Mailchimp.
- Run Meta ads for $20 at a time - begin learning what your customers respond to.
- Run Google ads for $20 at a time - begin learning what your customers respond to.
- If your Farmer's market has a website or promotional emails - ask to participate. Sometimes it's free. Usually the cost is fairly low.
- Subscribe to an affiliate program - pay others a % of sales to promote your product.
- Participate in neighborhood mailers (ie. ValPak).
- Design and print a sign and/or banner for your brand to use at markets.
- Design and print brochures - using business cards as brochures = low price.
You don't need to be a graphic designer or video editor. Use the free editing tools offered by Instagram or TikTok. Or, use free (or very low cost) apps on your phone like PicCollage or CapCut. You will be surprised how easy it is to create your own content for free. AI is making easy-to-use advances in graphic design and video design applications - but those apps typically require an annual or monthly fee.
By following the steps above you will begin to create a formula to measure, manage and execute successful marketing as you grow. At this phase, your failures are just as valuable as your successes because they teach you what not to do.
The only failure that should worry you, is the failure of not knowing why you failed or succeeded. Do not fail to learn. And do not fear failure. Any failure that makes you wiser is a victory. Fail fast. Fail often. Learn.