Free Marketing Resources

Free marketing resources are available for your business online and offline. Marketing is one of the most important aspects of business. You need to generate leads to make sales and keep the business operating and the cash flowing. Free marketing resources can especially help new businesses when they’re just getting started. Obviously established businesses would also be interested. However, established businesses would also have more flexibility to create a multi-channel marketing plan, mixed with paid and free resources, in order to more effectively reach their target.

Are Free Marketing Resources Actually Free?

The resources mentioned below are actually free. However there are some caveats to using them. With some of the free resources there’s still a lot of work you might have to do use those resources. In those cases they’re free if you do it yourself, but you may still decide to hire a professional to use those resources if they can do the job more effectively and get you more sales.

While some of the resources are free, they may not be available to you or your specific business. For example, all public relations media is free, but if your business does not have a news-worthy story, then you may not get featured in the news.

There are many free marketing resources, especially online. But just because they’re free does not mean they’re effective. If they don’t have a large enough reach or following, then there may be no point to using them. What good does it do to advertise to 2 people in month, especially if they’re not in your target market? The real value of all marketing channels is measured by their ability to reach your target market.

Free Marketing Channels

The word “marketing” is actually a very broad term that covers more than just promotional activities. It actually includes all activities that are conducted to bring your product to market. Some describe it with four P’s: Product, Price, Place, Promotion. Yet, when considering promotional channels, every single one of them can be grouped into one of three marketing channels. There are only three general categories of ways to communicate your marketing message and those are sales, public relations and advertising. Sales uses live human interaction and could include canvasing, cold calling, networking, and presentations. Public Relations (PR) is the use of free media channels to promote your business; they are more aptly called “earned” media channels as described further below. By definition, advertising is the use of paid marketing channels. However, there could be free ways to advertise. In addition the whether the media is free or paid, pubic relations and advertising also differ in their nature or style of message. Public relations are usually more informative and advertising is usually more direct in the call to action. A public relations message might say “new car repair shop opens downtown”; an advertising message might say “use coupon code new25 to get 25% of your first auto service”. One is more informative and one is more direct.

Free Sales Promotions

You can start with a free sales force of one when you’re doing your own sales. For this reason it’s not uncommon for sales people to go into business on their own. Other business owners don’t go into business expecting to become salespeople, but really every business owner is a salesperson. That doesn’t mean you have to push a pitch on other people like a stereotypical car salesman, but every business owner has something to sell.

Sales could actually be your entire business – you could be an independent sales person for another business which means you’ll have absolutely no overhead or cost of goods sold. See The Zero Expense Income Statement and Passive Cash Flow Businesses With $0 Startup Fees. The following are some free sales channels:

Canvasing – There are no fees to canvas houses or businesses except possibly minor expenses in vehicle gas money. This is also called door knocking. It’s not always the most fun, but who can argue with the price?

Cold Calling – There are no fees to cold call other businesses, except a few cents for a phone call. The national “do not call” list does not apply to businesses so that’s something you don’t have to worry about if you have a B2B product or service. If you’re calling homes then it will be best to use numbers where the home or phone owner has opted in.

Emailing – Individually emailing personal messages does not cost anything since email is free. Emailing on an individual basis is considered a sales activity, but email marketing, or emailing in bulk is more of a broadcast, which is a type of public relations. Do not use basic fee email, like Gmail, to send bulk messages. The prospect is more likely to read your email if they’re expecting it ahead of time, so it’s not just for introductions but to be used as part of the sales pipeline.

Networking – Sometimes networking groups have fees, but there are plenty of free events where you can go to meet other people and businesses. Try finding events on Meetup.com, Eventbrite.com, or Facebook.

Referral Partners – Build relationships with other businesses that offer complementary products and services to your target market. Ask them for referrals and give them referrals freely. This is free for both of you.

Presentations and Events – If you can borrow all the equipment that you need and get the venue for free, then it doesn’t cost anything to give presentations and organize events on your own. If the event is large enough then you could get the venue to donate the space in exchange for more exposure. You could even make money or cover any expenses through event sponsors, who would also be interested in gaining more exposure.

Even when you’re ready to step out of the sale position within your own company, you can hire commission-based sales people. This isn’t free since they still get paid, but it is $0 up front. Some of the best sales people work only on commissions because they can make more that way if they’re good and if the commission itself is reasonable. Other salespeople will appreciate at least a partial salary more.

Free Public Relations Promotions

By definition, public relations media is free media. More aptly it is called “earned” media. Since you’re not paying to promote your business on any particular public relations platform, it’s important to keep in mind that they are the only ones in control of their platform. They get to decide whether to feature you or not. There are things you can do to increase your chances. The general principle is to remember why the platform was created and then help them serve their audience. For example, a local newspaper wants to provide good news for their readers and provide relevant information to the community. Facebook wants to improve user engagement so it’s not enough just to post on Facebook; you have to get users to “like” and comment on the posts and do it yourself as well. Search Engine Optimization, is also a form of public relations (the media is free). Google and other search engines want to connect the user with the best resource that they’re searching for. There are a lot of rules involved with that.

Here are some traditional public relations media channels:

• TV News
• Local Newspapers
• Magazines
• Hyperlocal Magazines
• Radio Guest

Here are some modern digital public relations media channels:

• Guest blogging
• Internet Radio Guest
• Facebook, Twitter and all social media channels
• YouTube and other video channels
• SlideShare.net and other presentation sharing channels
• Google and other search engines
• All non-paid content marketing

Free Advertising Promotional Channels

Since advertising is the use of paid media, it may be a little more challenging to get free advertising compared to sales or public relations, but there are ways of doing it.

You could co-brand with another business who is advertising by offering a deal to their customers. Offering the deal could add value to the customer and make it more likely that they’ll use both of you instead of just one of you. For example, if you notice a complementary business is advertising through direct mail, then tell them they can include your deal in their ad to improve their conversions.

There are plenty of places where you can get free ad space, such as on your person and on your vehicle. There may be one-time printing costs involved with this advertising, but once the printing is done there are no recurring fees. The space is free.

Classified Ads online, such as Craiglist, are free. However, you have to be careful not to get blacklisted so that your ads actually appear. Also the quality of customers that you get from classified ads is not always the best.

Some advertising networks will give you free credit to start or to try it out. Google Adwords often gives credit ranging from $50 to $300.

When It’s Time To Use Paid Marketing

Free marketing resources can be great for new and established businesses alike. But they are limited in their reach and abilities. Even if you start with free marketing resources and become successful, your business may get to a point where you’ll want to continue growing but you’ve reached the capacity that free marketing provides. Or, you may be using free marketing resources and not growing the way you want to. Here are some considerations for using paid marketing:

• You’re currently doing it on your own, but you’d rather have an expert who does marketing better than you do
• You’re currently doing it on your, and you’re good at it, but this is not how you want to spend your time
• You’ve exhausted the capacity of free marketing resources on your own and you want to grow more
• You’re using free marketing channels effectively, but you know you need a larger multi-channel approach
• The free marketing channels are not help you reach your target market efficiently enough.

Basically, the time to consider paid marketing is when you want a higher return, and when the paid marketing will help you reach your target market and build your brand better. Consider Mirex Marketing when the time comes for you and your business to use effective paid marketing services.

Whenever free marketing resources are discovered, they’ll be added to the Business Solutions Directory and Web Freebies: Business Solutions, Free Marketing.