How to market your business for free in 2022

    So, you have a business and need free marketing ideas to increase leads and grow your company.  What should you do?

        In this article, we'll show you six free methods of repeatedly increasing leads for your business - free because the only investment is time!  Don't worry if not all of these strategies make sense, I will go into detail about each free marketing idea below.  By the end, you'll have all the free marketing ideas you'll ever need to market your business in an organic manner for free in 2022!

        Free marketing is when a company spends little or no advertising dollars on campaigns/initiatives to increase leads and grow its business. Free marketing can be used as a long or short-term strategy to increase leads and grow your company. If you already have advertising dollars, free marketing is still worth investigating because free initiatives take little time to generate extra leads - I'll provide free ideas for lead generation throughout the article!

        The six free organic methods of marketing that I'll discuss are:

        Social media, search engine optimization (SEO), blogging, press releases, online forums, and email marketing.

1. Utilize social media to market your business free of charge

Social media is free to use and is one of the most powerful marketing strategies to increase leads for free.  Here's how your business can use social media free of charge:

        Post on social media at least once per day - this includes your company's Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest, Tik Tok, and LinkedIn company page.  This strategy is free because the only thing you need is a social media account that can post your updates!  The more quality, engaging posts you make each day, the more free marketing you will generate over time.

Make sure that you optimize each post by using up to 10 hashtags to tell what your company is about or what kind of content you are sharing so that you maximize your reach and audience!

2. Focus on organic search engine optimization (SEO) for free leads

        The reason most people fail with free marketing is because they don't have an organic strategy.  So, each marketing idea has to have an organic element!  The first organic marketing strategy is search engine optimization or SEO for short.

        First, you need to understand the difference between free and paid SEO:

        Free SEO - this free marketing strategy is about using organic marketing ideas that increase your search engine ranking, allowing you to have free placement when people type in a relevant keyword or phrase into Google.

        Paid SEO (e.g., PPC, SEM) - this marketing strategy is the opposite because you pay for advertising on Google's platform.  When someone types in a keyword or phrase, your ad will appear at the top of free search engine results. You pay Google each time someone clicks on your paid ad.

        SEO is free organic marketing because you get online placement on search engines without spending a penny!  See below for free organic search engine optimization (SEO) marketing ideas:

• Setup a complete business profile on Google My Business
• Include keywords in the title/heading of your blog post
• Optimize blog posts for keywords that are related to your company or industry

3. Create free blogs and content for organic growth

        The best free strategy to market your business is blogging because it's the process of creating free, original content that helps teach your audience how to solve their problems or questions which in turn makes them purchase from you (this is exactly what Google algorithms like to read!).  A blog is a great strategy to increase leads because, in order to make a blog, it must be optimized with organic keywords and phrases that your audience types into Google when trying to solve their problems. You do this by writing blogs that are optimized organic keywords and phrases which in turn gives you free placement on search engines.

        There are free, organic ingredients to help you increase your blog's ranking with Google which allows you to be in the top search engine results:

• Have at least 500 words per post (the bigger the better)
• Have images included (feel free to use free stock images; some free stock photo sites are Pixabay, Pexels, and Unsplash)
• Post at least once a week (posting more often means better chances of free placement on Google's organic search engine results.  The best free SEO strategy is posting every day!)
• Have optimized, SEO blog posts with rich content. Avoid keyword stuffing!

4. Use press releases for free online publicity

        Press releases as a free marketing strategy are when you create organic online content that you share on free public relations (PR) distribution platforms for free, organic exposure for your company.

        The free PR distribution platforms we recommend are PRLog, Newswire Today, or PR.com.  On these PR distribution platforms, you can create press releases, distribute them for free to news websites, PR magazines, newspapers, etc., and have them indexed into online publications that gain you free organic exposure on public relations (PR) distribution platforms. Each time your press release is posted on a new website or included in a new publication it's free, organic online content for your business.  It also helps to add keywords and phrases into your press release in order to be found for google searches related to your business.

        Press releases are one of the best free marketing strategies because:

• Free distribution platforms will help you get seen by a large audience
• You get free organic exposure via public relations (PR) distribution platforms, online publications, and more free organic traffic from keywords and phrases related to your business which you can measure for free with analytic tools like Google Analytics

5. Utilize online forums, groups, and communities for free marketing

        Online forums, groups, and communities are free marketing strategies that allow you to create organic content that you share on free discussion topics.  These online marketing opportunities give you free organic exposure by getting your brand in front of people searching for your keywords and phrases. You can also share posts with these communities which helps increase free organic engagement online.

        Within free online forums, groups, and communities you can:

• Share organic content about your company
• Post discussion topics that relate to your business
• Show that you're the expert to people asking questions about your industry

6. Email marketing as a free marketing strategy

        Email marketing is one of our favorite online marketing strategies which gives you the opportunity to stay connected with your email list and keep customers on your email list up to date with new products, discounts, and other services. It can also be a useful tool to educate your audience on the value of your brand or keep them engaged with informative emails between purchases.

        With email marketing you can:

• Organically build email lists through opt-in strategies to increase leads for your business
• Send emails that keep your audience engaged
• Track and analyze opens and clicks of your audience
• Segment your lists to send targeted emails

We recommend using a free email marketing tool like MailChimp to increase free organic engagement with your email marketing.

        When you send emails through email marketing platforms like MailChimp, the email distribution service shows analytics that allows you to keep track of organic engagement such as opens, clicks, and what links people are clicking on. You can also A/B split test your emails to see which kind of content gets you more opens and more clicks.

In this article, you learned about free online marketing techniques that have been proven effective for businesses of all sizes. Set up business social media accounts, consistently post, and use hashtags. Include press releases in your SEO strategy as a great way to increase free organic traffic from public relations (PR) distribution platforms and other publications. Utilize free discussion forums or groups that can help drive free organic engagement with your target audience by sharing posts on these sites and participating in conversations related to your business. Use keywords in blogging and provide relevant content that keeps the viewer reading and only our page. Lever email marketing to build an email list for free, send emails that track results through the analytics provided, and split-test content types to see what gets more overall engagement. If you're looking for new ways to market your business without spending money then try one of these strategies today!

If you're looking for other low-cost ways to market your business, reach out today! We'd be happy to help. You can reach us at [email protected] or digigrowthmarketing.com.

Thanks for reading!