19 No-Cost Marketing Techniques You Need To Learn

A common issue with many startups is the "no-budget" phase. They have no money to do marketing.

So... What they can do?

There's a low-budget solution for startups with no money! You can focus on these low-budget marketing hacks instead of focusing on costly marketing methods.

The best thing about growth hacks is that they engage alternative methods of growing, which are (most of the times) lower cost.

Obviously, growth hacking isn't completely free. Especially, if the process involves people, employees, or outsourcing. 

But these techniques are very powerful and they don't require a huge marketing budget. 

1. Get Links From Your Service Providers

To rank higher, a website needs high-quality back-links. Where do you get these back-links? Obviously, buying links is not the advise here. So, what should you do?

Having already build partnerships with service providers or business, gives you an instant source of untapped link potential. Go ahead and reach out these providers and ask them to link to your website.

You will gain a few good quality links and all it will cost you was a few minutes of emailing.

2. Spot the un-linked mentions 

Another cool way to get links and boost your website's authority is to search for "unlinked" mentions of your company or brand. 

Once you spot such mentions in websites, email the editor of the site and ask them to provide a link. You might find many brand mentions all over the web!

{...A Few Emails Later...}

Boom! Free Back-links! The good kind!

3. Host a Webinar

Starting webinars will introduce your brand and products to a bigger audience. Think about the key here, the topic. The more appealing the topic, the better you'll attract interest.

You should be careful though, webinars take time. You need to brainstorm topics, plan the webinar and the work your promotion. You need to spread the word. 

4. The Cross-promote Method

Another bomb marketing method that some companies use is "Cross-Promotion". This method allows you to partner up with other relative businesses who can market your services, in exchange for marketing their services too. 

Something like the "shout-out for shout-out" on social media platforms!

It's a win-win strategy, and besides signing a document and an easy conversation, it does't require much work!

5. Blog Comments

The true meaning of marketing is to make your brand presence as popular as possible, right?! One way to achieve this is by commenting on blogs, not with general comments or spam, but by providing value too.  Let's see how it works: 

First things first: Identify the top 5 blogs on your niche. After that, read and comment on the blogs on a regular basis. As people see you name and brand, they'll become more familiar with it and why not, even curious about it.

By putting your comments, you establish a persistence brand presence. Just make sure your comments are useful and add value. Customers' perception of your brand is shaped by the quality of the comments.

6. Network In Person

You should not miss the opportunity to market in person. You'll meet amazing people in person  who you may never meet online.

Everyone you meet is another marketing possibility. You, obviously, don't want to go and shove your business into people's faces, but as work comes up in the conversation, you can tell them about your business and brand.

The whole idea of networking is basically marketing. You get to introduce other people to your business live and in person.

7. Run a Contest

As we've mention in our Instagram posts, contests are an amazing way to get more audience and increase your engagement, especially on social media!

Even though we all have seen scams in this field, online contests are still a great way to gain some low-cost marketing publicity. It's an easy way to get some viral potential and improve your image as a brand.

8. Build a Referral Program

The main characteristics of the best marketing forms are that you can set them up, turn them on organically, automatically, and without much effort or cost. 

Referral or affiliate programs may not work for every kind of business, but it always work the try. 

Creating an affiliate program basically turns your customers into a de facto marketing department. You don’t spend marketing money unless they first make a sale on your behalf.

9. Use Twitter

Twitter keeps killing it in marketing! It's instant reach and massive output play a huge role on that. Twitter can produce high levels of referral traffic, brand exposure, and give you a nonstop social buzz. 

A general suggestion is to follow at least 10 influencers in your niche, follow their followers, retweeting their tweets, mentioning them in comments, engage with them as much as possible. As you start getting more familiar with their platform, you'll you build your own platform.

10. Upsell Your Existing Customers

Most of the times, we trend to focus on gaining new customers, yet we forget our existing customers.

To be honest, the best marketing outcome comes from the existing customers. 

Marketing at your own customers is easier and low-cost. You will see extraordinary benefits.

11. Build your relationships with niche influencers

Time to get cozy! 

Every industry has a group of powerful players, they control conversations, shape the market, and reach huge audience.

Make these people your friends, and be direct. Provide them with a product, service of yours or partnering with them on a project are some simple and mutually helpful ways to grow your brand.  

12. Claim a Hashtag

"Hashtags are the billboards of the Internet." Since hashtags are available on every social platform, you can create a hashtag for your business and use it everywhere you post.

13. Get More Email Addresses

Pay more attention to Email Marketing! 

Growing your email list in one the most effective marketing methods. 

14. The User-Generated Content

Everyone know that inbound marketing and content marketing go hand by hand. Having great content is key but you should be careful because content marketing can be expensive. Here's a way to gain more content and still have your budget intact:

The use of user-generated content. 
Step one of the process: Motivate your existing fans and customers to tell their own story and create content, and boom, you have tons of fresh and engaging content that your audience will love. Your audience will create and share content for you!

15. Talk to Your Fans

Engagement is a key component of a great marketing strategy. Audience and customers love to be loved. You do too, right?! Show them your love and appreciation by retweeting, re-posting, favorite and like tweets and posts, liking their comments, and sharing their status. You cannot expect that a still social media presence will do all the work for you. You need to work for it, by engaging with your audience.

Be sure, they will return the favor and engage at a deeper level.

16. Blog

Blogging, cannot be missing from a list like this! A business blog is an absolutely necessary strategy for online marketing. Use it! Work at it and make it work for you!

17. Guest Blogs

Blogging is amazing but guest blogging is doubly amazing! Posting an article on another blog gives you, instantly more audience and fresh audience! Guest blogging is free. You just need to create a killer article, appealing to the blog's audience, and you might be invited back to write more articles.

18. Create A LinkedIn Group

LinkedIn is a free platform, and yet gives you great marketing opportunities. Many professionals use it a social media tool, a place to put up their resume, and not much else. 

LinkedIn is so much more that an online platform to put your resume. Because of its high organic reach is a great place to publish content, connect with powerful people, find people to work with you or for you, and build a marketing group with thousands of members. 

All of these with ZERO COST!

19. Offer Free Help to Others

Try giving to others, free of charge.

Of course you're not a charity. you're a business. But why not give away a product, an hour of your time, or a part of the services you provide for a customer who can't afford your services. 

Conclusion

Marketing doesn’t have to break your bank account. Like we mentioned at the beginning of this article, marketing can require nothing more than the investment of your time.

Chances are, you can increase your marketing presence today by implementing one of these methods. Pick one and run with it.

What is your favorite no-cost marketing technique?