5 Cost Effective Ways To Market Your Business Online

Let’s be frank! Online marketing is not easy. You’re spending money, time, and energy hoping that something sticks and that you hopefully become the next big thing or you get some ROI on your investment. What works for my business isn’t going to necessarily work for another. You have to be creative, diligent, and always be watching to see what is working and what isn’t.

Not only is there a huge learning curve for beginners, but you have plenty of marketers coming after your wallet claiming to be experts in online marketing. If you decide to go at alone, it will take you weeks, months, or even years to figure it out. If you hire someone you pray you made the right decision and don’t flush money down the toilet.

Personally, I have been marketing online since 2008 and have worked with many individuals and businesses on their online marketing. I wanted to take some time to share with you 5 of my favorite Cost Effective things you can do to market your business online that won’t waste your time or your hard earned dollars if done correctly.

#1. Blogging — Even though blogging can takes months or even years to build up any sort of decent following, writing about things that are relevant to your audience can always increase traffic and in return get you more followers and customers for your business. If you choose to blog there are 2 things you will want to always remember — consistency leads to results and you will need to have patience — lots and lots of it. I personally, write 2 blogs for my business weekly (try to anyways). One is tailored for the solo entrepreneur and home based business professional and the other is tailored towards the small & mid-sized business owner. At times if it makes sense— I may share an article like this that could be relevant to both blogs. I have to admit it is harder than it sounds as you always have to scramble for good content and you need to be somewhat of a decent writer. If writing isn’t your thing you can always hire a freelancer to do it for you, or use an employee.

#2. Video Marketing — If you haven’t already consider setting up a YouTube Channel. This will be one of the best ways to reach out to people in your network and beyond. I really think that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) from Video is 10 times what it is for a website at least in speed. I can create a video and get it optimized in days vs. weeks, months, or years with a website. It’s hands down one of the cheapest and most effective ways to market your business. I have seen my clients including myself add hundreds and even thousands of dollars to their bottom line by simply creating a few videos and getting them to come up on the top of YouTube. I will add that this is a very competitive space, but if you learn how to optimize your videos or have a professional optimize them for you-you will be very pleased with the results. I have had a few videos come up #1 out of hundreds for search terms and this can be very beneficial for your business if done correctly.

#3. Email Marketing — Email marketing may not be what it once was years ago with all of the spam filters these days, but I still think that it is an effective way for you to stay in front of your customers and prospects on a regular basis. Like with blogging you will want to be consistent at least once a month, weekly, or bi-weekly. You will definitely want to sign up for one of the many email services to broadcast your emails (MailChimp, constant contact, Aweber, Icontact, etc.) My personal favorite is Icontact.com, but any one should work and they all cost about the same. Don’t be over the top with your marketing as many people will be turned off if you constantly send out emails. The key to email marketing is good copywriting skills (sales copy) and knowing the best times to send out your emails. If you’re promoting your business, probably not best to send out your emails on a Sunday. It’s also important to always be growing your email list. You want your subscriber base to grow so you have more people (hopefully targeted) to reach out to. One of the ways that we grow our email list is by giving away a free e-book on both of our websites.

#4. Social Media Marketing — If you’re running a business and you are not on at least Facebook (over 3 billion active users are now on Facebook worldwide), you are seriously jeopardizing the future of your business in my opinion. Those businesses that are active in social media will thrive in the future. I feel like a few years ago no one knew where it was really going, but today it shapes our lives from news, to whats happening now, to sharing photographs of our latest vacation. It’s a phenomenon that is not going away anytime soon. Even if you don’t like it (and many people don’t) get involved if nothing less for your business. Your life depends on oxygen and water to survive. Your business nowadays depends on Social Media. Find one or two social media sites that you feel will best represent your business and be consistent and simply put yourself and your business out there. NO one ever made it big by playing it safe. This is your opportunity to share your business with the entire world and really connect with others in a much more personal way. Think of it like a giant party and you have an opportunity to not only promote your business, but to make new friends.

#5 Content Marketing — similar to this site or even linkedin.com which now allows you the ability to publish articles. The great thing about using sites like medium or Linkedin to publish articles is it allows you the ability to share content beyond your social media networks, email, or blogs. A lot of times I will write my blog first on medium than copy and paste it to my blog. Make sure if you do copy & paste that you reference the article in your blog. I have found in the past that some of my best written articles that got the most attention were not from my blogs, but from my articles that I wrote on these other sites away from my blog.

Well, there are 5 cost-effective ways to market online. I hope this helps you with your online marketing whether you are a newbie or a seasoned pro. Marketing is pretty much everything that happens prior to an exchange of money. If done well, it can make you a fortune, if done poorly it can waste a lot of time & money and in some cases even cost you your business. If you feel like you would rather stay away from marketing and focus more on the things you are good at — always feel free to reach out to myself or another online expert for help on making your business stand out in a noisy overpopulated online world.