How Can Entrepreneurs Promote Themselves With “Zero Budget”

So you have finally launched your start-up. Its dream come true, and you are undoubtedly excited. You may even have a customer or two already. However, here comes the tough part: How do you go from having few customers, to enough customers to sustain your business and fuel its growth?

It is a journey that can get quite lonely at times, and requires an indomitable spirit hardened enough to chase the possibility of an idea coming to life despite an array of challenges. The most obvious challenge that almost all entrepreneurs face is a lack of finances in the early stages. The little money that small-businesses begin with is barely enough to cover the start-up’s operational costs.

Entrepreneurship isn’t just about chasing Lamborghinis and retiring in your 30s. It is about making the world a better place by creating viable solutions for complex problems. Given the lack of financial resources, start-ups need to get creative in their marketing endeavours.

Compensate for the lack of money with an abundance of consistency on social media

Start-ups don’t usually have dedicated budgets to spend on several marketing channels. However, advertising on social media platforms requires creativity and consistency more than financial affluence. A single Instagram post can be broken down into individual building blocks. The picture and the caption should not be treated like two separate entities. They must be created in tandem with each other — in a way that compliments the brand’s identity and captures its voice in textual as well as visual mediums. Along the same lines, there are certain intricacies to marketing on social media platforms that startup owners need to understand. If you don’t have the money to hire a dedicated marketing staff, you need to educate yourself about how different platforms work. Once you strike a balance between quality and consistency, you can sit back and watch the conversions happen. Furthermore, look into partnering with other influencers and influencer marketing if your company’s resources permit you to do so.

Create a Blog

In a world where new technologies like AI and AG are set to transform digital marketing, blogging is still a viable marketing tool. B2B marketers have been able to generate 67% more leads by using blogs as a marketing tool compared to advertising strategies that don’t use blogs. Another study indicates that marketers who prioritize blogging over other forms of content marketing have a 13 times higher chance of getting ideal ROI compared to those who do not prioritize blogging. Yet again, blogging is a marketing practice that requires time and effort over money and other resources. Along with working on your own blog, you can also take out time to guest blog on popular websites in your niche.

Connect with digital marketing expert

Given the rise in consumption online content, especially videos, many digital experts share latest tips and tricks that can be easily embraced by you. They also take a few questions during live videos. Not only this some digital experts work with you as your mentor to guide on various problems you wish to address in online marketing, social media campaigns and more. This does not necessarily involve monetary terms but a service in exchange of a service is a thing in trend now. So, find a digital marketing guru who you can trust and talk your way out!

Build a Community by Straightening out your brand’s message

As a business, you’re likely to communicate with customers across several channels, both online and offline. You’re likely to run into potential customers at business events. You can be reached out via email, or other contact options detailed on your website’s contact page. You can have hundreds of messages from your loyal customer base on social media platforms. The first and foremost step to building a community for your business is figuring out what it stands for. Have a clear idea of what your business end goal is, and what its target audience is. After that, create an elevator pitch that you can broadcast over online as well as offline channels as and when required. Concise and consistent brand identity will lead to the creation of a community that will last the test of time

Create Videos

Anyone with a modern smartphone or tablet can create a video and upload it to YouTube. So why not harness the power of the technology you have in your pocket? Product demos, behind the scenes tours and how to work brilliantly and other exciting videos are very popular online. You can too publish them to a ready-made audience on YouTube at – you guessed it – zero cost!

Conclusion

Marketing your product or service without sufficient financial resources is a difficult task, but not an impossible one. It would have been a pipe dream a decade ago, but in today’s digital age, it is a possibility as real as the oxygen we breathe. At the end of the day, none of the above ways will necessarily open the flood gates when it comes to new clients. Have realistic expectations as you invest energy, effort and time into building the marketing foundation for your start-up. First, it will provide your team with valuable leads that can help to initial growth. Second, it will prevent you from losing the interest of potential customers, who could be turned off by sloppy or unprofessional marketing messages. Finally, when you can afford a full-time marketing/PR professional, that person can truly focus on bringing your company to the next level. They won’t waste time and money ripping apart and rebuilding what could have been executed correctly in the first place. Entrepreneurship is all about working around constraints, and a sparse marketing budget is nothing but a constraint that needs to be tackled.

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Social Media Campaigns, Digital Campaigns, Creative Ads, Creative Video, PR, Digital Marketing, Technology, Advertising Strategies, B2B marketers, Influencer marketing, Brand Marketing, Product marketing, Online Campaigns