Over the last 10 years, I have had countless businesses express and tell me that they can’t afford to start doing marketing. I have always helped give them creative ways to kickstart marketing themselves.
If you do not have money to start creating content, running paid ads, running email marketing campaigns, and getting a social media manager there are things YOU can do. There is hope, keep reading 🙂
I will show you how to DIY kickstart your business’s presence and begin generating leads online in less than 5 hours a week. I will break down everything you need to know to start marketing your business with $0.
These are timeless strategies that you can use over and over again while creating success.
And one major thing…
You must let go of your bias. It is easy to be critical of ourselves. To not like our voice, how we look on camera, or to judge our own writing. If you can overcome this, you will find success!
Lastly, before we start, your first couple of attempts of each strategy will be a learning experience, you will quickly get more confident and efficient with time. Give yourself some grace and embrace the process.
Ok, let’s dive in and get you on the track to sales and lead flow!
1. Content Strategy – Organic Growth
I have never been a writer myself. Writing is not natural or common for most people, but with a few tools and tips, you can quickly have a process and idea generation engine for topics to write about to kickstart your business!
Using Google to Find High Traffic Topics
Below I show some screenshots of Google’s “People also ask” section. When you perform a search on Google you will often see in the organic and natural ranking area of some common questions people type into the search engine. Those are GREAT jumping-off points and topics to simply answer and write about!
You can write 400 words in about 15-20 minutes answering these common questions and then publish it live to your website.
I will show you an example search from the “People also ask” results for a roofing company. Feel free to run your own example relevant to your business, product, or service.
People also ask, search example
You can see above that when a user runs a search, and you scroll below the paid ads, and google maps section you will find the “people also ask”.
These are the blogs you should focus on answering and writing about as often as possible. Do not waste too much time breaking your brain on these and just answer in a conversational and open way. Shoot for 400 words or 3-5 helpful paragraphs.
Google Search Console – use this tool to measure ranking and results
Google Search Console is a tool that reports to you the data that your website ranks for. It shared the top queries (words or searches basically), the top pages, and more.
As you create content and rank, you want to track and see what Google is recognizing you for! Think of this as low-hanging fruit. Continue to optimize for high quality terms, and on your best performing pages.
Here is why I said lose your bias, and don’t be critical…
Most people do not see your articles when you first post them! If you use Google Search Console to track and measure how pages are beginning to rank, you can then go back and update your top blogs once they start gaining traction. Big brain secret right here. Go back and optimize and improve your articles as they start ranking.
Why this is so important is that Google wants to see the consistency of your content. As you are consistent you start ranking, you can then go back and become critical and improve your pages.
I can’t stress this enough.
Here are two examples of businesses data below that deployed this strategy.
You can see that with consistent writing and at only 2 articles a week they were able to get considerable growth of their impressions (which means visibility on Google and search) and then clicks (actual clicks and traffic to their site).
Set a consistent schedule to write, give yourself a timer, and answer the common questions people ask that you have answers to about your business!
2. Video Content – Youtube
Modern engaging video is shot from the phone. Check out tik tok, Instagram, and even youtube has a shorts video type now due to the popularity and increased engagement of videos shot on the phone.
Just like the example above on how to find popular questions or topics on Google, you can use Youtube in the same fashion.
This is a powerful SEO tactic to get your Youtube channel ranking which can be leveraged to funnel people to your website or other social channels.
Start typing into Youtube, and get recommended ideas of what people commonly search. This should inspire what content you will make.
When making these videos, be sure to do a few things so that you get maximum results.
- Optimize the title to the search & maximize the characters (up to 100 characters on youtube)
- Fill out the description. This is the crawlable text Google uses to discern and index your video!
- Add tags – do not forget to add tags to your videos (click show more to find tags)
- Use playlists – you can associate videos into playlists to create a rabbit hole effect for watchers
Next, I will share a few examples of how to get even more specific, and more intentional so you can be discoverable for a wide variety of searches and needs.
Researching Long Tail Opportunities
Long-tail simply means longer searches. Let me share two practical examples that will make this clear. Here is an example of how to quickly find “long tail” video titles based on user needs.
You can see there are tons of variations of these simple searches, and they are longer. This is what I mean by “long tail”. The longer the search, typically the less volume and the quicker you can actually rank. (long tail is often less competitive)
The more you optimize and make content for these long tail (longer keyword searches) the quicker you will rank for these less competitive terms. With consistency, you will start to earn ranking for shorter searches as well. (for example, “how to cook”)
3. Video for Social – Tik Tok & Instagram
Two of the absolute best, fast, and easy ways to get organic visibility for your brand is through Instagram and Tik Tok. Specifically Instagram Reels and the Tik Tok #ForYou feed.
These two channels are meant for entertainment, education, lifehacks, adding value, and showcasing your brand’s personality. Tik Tok is not all about dancing, it is a great way for small businesses and entrepreneurs to tell their story.
Here are some great ideas for videos you can create to tell your brands story:
- Success Stories – share about your brand’s accomplishment or success
- Meet the team – showcase your team, talent and work culture in a fun way
- Your Why and Purpose – tell the inspiration behind your brand, why you do what you do
- Announce deals – share the latest deal or exclusive offer to users
- How to start a business – educate entrepreneurs how to get started in a biz like yours
- Business Hacks – educate on tools, or shortcuts to success. Add value to others!
- Giveaways – offer deals or giveaways to create engagement, but you must provide value
- Showcase customer experiences – your best customers are your best testimony
- Tour your workspace – show your location or office and culture
- Community Service – if you give back or are philanthropic, tell that story
Social video is a great way to showcase your identity in a unique way. Be intentional in telling your story in a unique way, create a high-quality video, and you will stand out from the competition.
In 2022 Instagram and Tik Tok’s organic reach is incredible. You can still get 600-3,000 views pretty easily with a brand new page if you make quality content! As you gain followers and increase the engagement you can increase that number dramatically. Take 60 seconds a day and make 1 video per platform a day to kickstart your social video strategy!
4. Paid ad pixels – for future marketing
While this guide is to help you do marketing with a $0 budget, it is still wise to set up paid platforms and place their codes on your website. When you do get to the point where you are generating revenue, you may want to run paid ads or retargeting ads.
While the tracking pixels will be going away in 2023 (read more) you still have time to place these tracking pixels and leverage their data for paid ads and retargeting campaigns before 2023.
Place those codes on your website today, and leverage them whenever you have the ability to run paid ads. This applies to Facebook/Instagram as well.
If you need help with pixel placement just reach out to us and we would be happy to help with a quick setup!
5. Guest on a podcast – Adding Value
It seems like everyone is starting a podcast nowadays. You do not have to start a podcast, you can be the guest on a podcast. Find newer podcasts that do not have lots of reviews yet or that are in need of guests. These are easier to get featured on if you are not established.
Over the last year, I have been invited to 4-5 podcasts and it has led to some great relationships and business opportunities. The more you are consistent with your brand, your content, and adding value, you will get invited to opportunities you would not have otherwise.
Podcast features can be broken down into audio snippets used across all of your social channels as evergreen social content. Evergreen content is great because it can be used long-term across months or years. Recycling and reusing content on social is one of the most common ways to stay present and podcasts create a great option for doing exactly this!
It is even better if the podcast is recorded in video format. Then you can create short video snippets which are even more engaging on social to be shared.
6. Twitter – the undervalued social channel
Twitter is probably the most valuable and underappreciated social channel that I have ever used. Twitter is a place where you can raise capital, share new ideas, and build an audience with the largest group of free thinkers in the world. This is where memes start typically lol.
It is also a place where trolls and degenerates hang out. This is why you MUST curate a high-quality feed of good content. Here are a few great threads and users you should follow on Twitter and model after so that you can create a following and add value to the channel.
Be sure to open these posts up as they are threads and contain more than 1 tweet. It is a series of tweets in a row telling a story through a thread format.
How to write better.
Learn how to write threads on Twitter
Business Writing 101
Twitter has a horrible onboarding experience. They recommend celebrities, brands, and presidents. In reality, you need to be following bright minds, great thinkers, and the top 1% of writers. Model after those who are successful and you can build a massive audience.
If you provide real-world value, you will generate leads and grow an audience. Do not sleep on Twitter!
7. Contests/Giveaways – To Grow Email Lists
Building an email list and a social following can be a lot of work. There is an incredible free tool out there that I LOVE to use. This tool is kingsumo.com.
King Sumo structures its giveaways specifically for email capture, social following, and social sharing. Meaning, that each contest can help you build an email list, increase your follower count, and get your brand visible on other people’s social feeds.
For a user to register they must either log in with Facebook or submit an email and verify their email. This gets you quality, real email!
Next upon email entry, the contestant has the option to then share the contest over social for more entries, and the user can follow your social channels for more entries.
Below are a few screenshots to see how a contest looks.
This tool has helped me kickstart many brands’ social followings and email lists. I have gained anywhere from 200 emails, upwards to 10,000 emails per contest!
One VERY important thing
The giveaway must be unique to your business. If you just give away an Amazon gift card, everyone who sees’s it may enter with their spam email.
If you give away something relevant and valuable to your business, you will get high intent and high-quality entrants which you can then use in the future for email marketing, and social targeting campaigns. (Read that again).
Make sure you are intentional with your content so that you get the highest quality email list and social follows!
8. Linkedin – Getting the eyes of professionals
Some people write off Linkedin as a platform, but I have found it to be one of the greatest social channels. What I recommend doing is sharing your brand’s content from your personal page to your network. (examples below)
Linkedin is a place where people “peacock” and showcase themselves. Just like how Facebook and Instagram are places where people only post the good or glamorous parts of their lives, Linkedin has a lot of “look at me culture”.
What I have found to be successful is creating valuable educational content and vulnerable content can be VERY impactful. Showcase the real side of running a business or being an entrepreneur. It is relatable. These are stories that everyone can relate too.
Use Linkedin as an opportunity to also tell customer stories, or share breaking news that impacts your industry, business, or brand.
You can build a following of professionals that engage which will increase your reach and visibility. Branding is everything, so be sure to tell your brand’s story on the professional platform.
Here are a couple of examples below. Notice how our individual profiles are sharing hiring an employee, or sharing an industry update and then pushing to our networks.
Allow your business page to tell stories, share industry updates, and be a news leadership page that leads to followers and more eyes on your brand.
9. Recycling content – Evergreen Content
All of your hard work for your brand’s marketing strategy can be reused, repurposed, and reposted over time. Here are some examples of ways to recycle and repurpose content below based on what we have discussed so far.
- Content Writing – if you are answering common questions, and creating blogs/pages that have long term value, feel free to reshare the most impactful content you have created, schedule posts out 2, 3 or 6 months out, followers won’t remember, and you can get more great engagement. It must add value
- Video Content – Youtube videos can have a 7+ year shelf life. Feel free to schedule and share these time and time again. The more likes, comments, and watch time you get, the higher your videos will rank organically. Make sure to reshare your top videos.
- Podcast Guest – if you are featured on a podcast. Take the 30-60+ minute episode and break it into top snippets. These 1-2 minute short-form video or audio files can be shared time and time again to build your brand and identity. Always be adding value!
- Twitter Threads – If you create quality twitter content, threads, or write-ups, they can be impactful for years forward. Leverage those again in the future by retweeting, or even converting your top twitter threads into blogs or short-form videos.
As you build a database of great content, and you analyze your best-performing content, you will get a solid feeling and foundation for what your core audience likes. Reuse and repurpose that content, and create more content that aligns with your most successful content. Read more about evergreen content strategy here.
NOW GO EXECUTE!
We went through a TON of valid and successful strategies that you can implement and deploy IMMEDIATELY to establish your brand or personal identity online. These are timeless approaches that will add value, tell your story, build buzz, generate a following, and ultimately help you create funnels.
If you have questions feel free to hit me up personally on Twitter, or reach out at the form below. I hope this leaves you inspired and encouraged. You can build something incredible, now get to work 🙂
Give our team a shout below if we can be of any help!