20 Low-Cost Marketing Ideas for your Business

Lots of us are thinking about the best way to bounce back from the difficulties of the past few months. But in all the belt-tightening of this recession, our marketing budget is likely the first thing to get cut. How can we make an impact without having a lot of money to do it?  

1. Learn how to ask for referrals—and do it! The Balance has a great cheat sheet. 
2. Make an instructional video—the perfect cocktail, the best sustainable workplace tips, or how to code an app. It can be as complicated as a multi-cam video edited on Adobe Premier, or as lo-fi as a TikTok series. 
3. Do some free social listening about your industry using Reddit, HootSuite or Quora. And then go forth and create the content that your customers want to see. 
4. Apply online for a business award in your sector. 
5. Leverage LinkedIn to build your network of potential partners and establish your own personal brand. 
6. Spend some time optimizing your Google My Business page—your online storefront.
7. Segment your email newsletters to make sure you’re reaching the right people with the right message. 
8. Partner up! Link with other local small businesses to run an Instagram giveaway, a bundle deal, or a virtual event.
9. Unleash your inner creative and establish some local guerilla marketing—in parks, on sidewalks, wherever people in your area are going for their socially distanced walks. Just be sure to keep it legal. 
10. Do some good in your local area—lots of people are hurting at the moment, and if you commit to helping out, your community will thank you. 
11. Pitch to appear on a relevant podcast. Podcasters are always looking for fresh content and might be relieved to have you approach to them with a good idea.
12. Experiment with a micro-influencer program—do the research to find people in-house, and look closely at how quickly they’ve grown and what their engagement rate is. 
13. Write some personal thank you notes to repeat customers, and encourage them to leave a review or testimonial. Add a coupon or free sample and they’ll be yours!
14. Create an online community. If your target demographic is vegans in Albany or car mechanics in Portland, start a Slack group or Facebook group where people can discuss issues that are important to them. Don’t go in for the hard sell, your presence will be enough to help keep you top of mind. 
15. Recycle old content. Did you publish some proprietary data, or spend a ton of money on a video series? If so, now might be a good time to reapproach it with a new lens. 
16. Revisit your lapsed customers and write a text-only, personalized email inviting them back with a discount code. 
17. Start a customer referral program where your best advocates get rewarded for bringing in new people.
18. Position yourself as an expert by hosting a video Q&A where you answer questions related to your product and industry. Collect questions beforehand.
19. If you have a product, take your customers behind the scenes of how it’s created and shipped to build trust and familiarity.
20. Grit your teeth for a little cold calling.