Leveraging free online tools is one of the effective strategies for business promotion. Business promotion is important because without it you won’t be able to generate leads & sales. Besides, it is the only way to win the competition and build a strong brand.
There are dozens of ways that help promote your business online. However, not every business promotion strategy turns out to be successful.
In this guide, you will get familiar with seven business promotion strategies that work well.
Shall we begin?
1. Create high-quality content
One of the most straightforward ways to promote your business online is content creation. It allows you to raise potential problems that your target audience might have and suggest your product as a solution.
The idea of content marketing is to drive traffic from search engines organically. If you do content marketing right, then your traffic stats might look like this:
This is an example of a nicely crafted content marketing strategy that the company runs.
Content creation aims to put your business on the first Google page. Thus, you should consider the level of competition within the niche.
For instance, your business revolves around a type of financing that helps SaaS companies. You create content that covers a topic related to SaaS loans. Due to a low level of an SEO metric called Keyword Difficulty, it isn’t hard to get to the Google first page, as a post from Uncapped did.
How to create content that people would love to read?
First of all, you need to explore topics with search traffic potential. To put it simply, those topics that users explore on the web.
Secondly, focus on covering topics with high business potential. In other words, the topics that help promote your business naturally.
How to find the topics per the above mentioned criteria?
You can use a tool called Keywords Explorer from Ahrefs. Enter your seed keyword and go to the “Matching terms” report. Click the “Phrase match” tab and rip the benefits.
For example, you want to help your target audience understand how real estate syndication works. Your main keyword is “real estate syndication” and here are the suggestions per your request.
You can pick any topic from 570 suggestions. But keep in mind the conditions – it should have a high level of traffic and business potential.
2. Create video content on YouTube
It is a well-known fact that YouTube is the second largest search engine platform after Google. Therefore, you need to work on creating video content and uploading it on YouTube.
You might wonder if your video content marketing strategy differs from the strategy you use to create written content. Nope. It abides by the same two criteria you should follow – cover topics with search traffic and business potential.
How to find ideas for your future video content?
You can use a free YouTube Keyword tool.
Let’s say, your company produces candle boxes. You are aware that it makes sense to demonstrate to people what types of boxes you offer. Thus, the best way to do this is by creating video content.
However, to get a better idea of the video topics, the YouTube Keyword tool will be handy. Just enter your target keyword and review suggestions with their monthly search volume.
Finally, create a video and post it on YouTube to promote your business.
Taylor Box Company uploaded a “portfolio of custom candle boxes” video and could generate 12K views.
3. Podcasting
Podcasting is in demand nowadays. You can find podcasts related to your business niche. And these podcasts wouldn’t mind having you as a guest.
How to find niche-related podcasts?
Don’t reinvent the wheel and use a search request “[niche] podcasts” on Google.
For example, your business is about mobile app development. You might think that the direction of your business is a specific one. And it will be hard to explore podcasts.
Likely, Google can suggest a list of podcasts to choose from.
Afterwards, reach out to a podcast host, introduce yourself, and suggest a topic for discussion. When you are a podcast guest, you will be able to promote your business to podcast listeners directly.
4. Build business partnership
If you own a small business but offer a nice product, then you can get access to a wide audience that other companies have. What’s more important, these companies are not related to your niche. But you can benefit from each other.
It sounds a bit weird, right?
The following example will help you understand the idea behind the partnership. Assume that your company offers custom cardboard boxes. And the variation of the boxes is huge.
Your boxes might call interest across different businesses. For example, you can try to build a partnership with a food company.
In the same way, people among the food company’s audience might be interested in your boxes for their personal needs. Let’s say, gift boxes, metalized boxes, and so on.
5. Become an event speaker
Another actionable way to promote your business is by being a speaker at events.
Perhaps, any business niche has experts who would love to cast themselves in the role of speakers. It hasn’t to be an event with thousands of people who would listen to your speech. Nope. You can start with local events that have a small group of listeners.
Due to the modern-day situation in the world, you can participate in online conferences, summits, and streams. It would be even better for you if you had never ever talked in front of an audience before.
How to succeed as an event speaker?
Here are a few tips that will help you a lot:
- Cover the topic that you are aware of (no need to be a super-expert in the topic but you should have some good knowledge and practical experience in what you’re talking about)
- Don’t charge money for your speaking (the idea is to raise awareness of your personal brand, not earn money)
- Attend events by yourself (discover the world of conferences as a guest, not a speaker; build connections with other speakers and learn something from them)
- Sell your personal brand (the main goal of speaking at events is to reach out to potential customers; hence, try to assure people that you are a top expert and it is worth working with you)
6. Be active across social media channels
Practice shows that most businesses post self-promotional content on social media channels. While the chosen strategy isn’t right.
Instead, they should focus on posting engaging content. Such content will help them connect with the audience before pitching the product or service.
For example, your business suggests an applicant tracking system for recruiters. You can create a simple but actionable IGTV video for Instagram on how this system works rather than sending boring ads on the web.
Remember, your aim is to help your target audience solve the issues people have. Not to sell your business directly.
7. Work on creating a comparison page
If you are familiar with the marketing funnel stages, then you know what happens during the “consideration” stage. At this stage, potential customers compare your product with the other competitors on the market.
Don’t be afraid of this natural process of a buyer’s journey.
The task is to help them understand why they should choose your product.
Thus, go ahead and create a comparison page on your site. So, what exact steps do you need to take?
Start with finding your competitors. You can do this by reviewing the “Competing domains” report in Site Explorer tool. Enter your website URL and see what competitors are within the niche.
The next step is to think about the pros and cons of your company compared to competitors. Don’t delude your audience by winning in every comparison category. Be honest. Customers like transparency and truth.
Make sure that the comparison page meets all the requirements of UX and UI. For this, you can cooperate with one of the user experience design agencies and delegate a task to a team of professionals.
To Conclude
Business promotion can suggest tons of solutions on how to push your business further free of charge. It is up to you which way to choose.
These seven business promotion strategies cost no money. However, it takes time to see the results.
If you don’t want to wait, you can apply a paid advertising method. But keep in mind that paid ads work unless you pay your money.