12 Best Low-Budget Marketing Strategies

If you don’t have a big marketing budget, it’s easy to look at competitors that are spending big bucks on promotion and feel like you’re falling behind. Thankfully, there are many (many!) marketing strategies that are low budget and even free. Here are 12 of our favorite low-budget marketing strategies for companies with smaller budgets:

Social Media Posts

Paid advertising on social media isn’t free, but posting organic content to your own page is! You should definitely have a presence on the social media platforms that make the most sense for your company and industry. If you have some extra budget, try boosting a couple of your most important posts to see if that pays off.

Email Marketing

Many email platforms offer a free option for subscriber lists under a certain number threshold, making this a great low-budget marketing strategy for small businesses. Sending out an email once or twice a month is a great way for you to keep your fans updated on major sales, product releases, and corporate swag, plus drive traffic to your website and social media pages.

Google My Business Profile

If you are a local shop that depends on foot traffic, then you should absolutely have a Google My Business profile. This helps potential customers find your location more easily through Google search and gives you a boost in the rankings as well. Encourage customers to leave a Google review to further boost your profile and make it rank even higher.

By garagestock / Shutterstock.com

Search Engine Optimization

Speaking of ranking higher in Google search results, you should definitely be using search engine optimization tactics to make your website rank higher in search results. This option is a little more technical than some of the others, and it takes more time to see results, but it’s one of the most effective low-budget marketing strategies.

Blogging

Another you can do to boost your website rankings is to regularly put out high-quality blog posts. Blogs also offer many chances for repackaging them into other marketing assets — including ebooks, content syndication, infographics, and more — without much added effort.

Webinars or Classes

Webinars are another form of content that you can put out for free on the internet; all you need is Zoom or another similar video call platform. If you don’t want to build a webinar idea from scratch, then you can pull together several related blog posts and mine them for content instead. Make sure to advertise the webinar on your social media platforms so that a lot of attendees will sign up. You can also host an in-person class if you have the space to do so, but that might not be feasible if your office is on the small side.

By wellphoto / Shutterstock.com

PR and Local Media

If you have a newsworthy launch coming up, the local media might be happy to cover it for free. Contact the appropriate editors at your local newspapers and magazine to see if they can potentially sign a reporter to cover it. They may also have store databases or other resources for promoting local businesses to both residents and tourists, so ask about that as well.

Cold Call or Email

This strategy is time-consuming, but it can really pay off in the long run. Set aside some time to reach out to potential partners, whether those are stores that might like to carry your product or other businesses you’d like to co-host an event with. You will get a lot of “no”s or no responses, but you never know when you might get a “yes”!

Affiliate Programs

If you sell products or gifts for employees directly to consumers, an affiliate marketing program might be an excellent opportunity for you to get others to market your products for you. In affiliate programs, bloggers, YouTubers, and other content creators link to your product pages. If the product sells, they make a small commission off of it, but you don’t have to pay anything if they don’t sell any products.

By wee dezign / Shutterstock.com

Giveaways

Giveaways are another fantastic low-budget marketing strategy since all you have to pay for is the product itself. Make sure that you tie entry to the giveaway to newsletter signups, social media follows, or other marketing channels. If you are going to a trade show or a similar event, you should also get some cheap bulk promotional products that you can hand out to everyone who comes by your booth.

Referral or Reward Program

Your best advocates are your current customers, especially your repeat buyers. Entice them to spread the word about your company with either a reward or referral program. Reward programs usually work for e-commerce or in-store businesses that stock items well-suited for repeat purchasing, such as consumables or clothes, as well as places that offer recurring services like car washes or manicures. Referral programs work well if you have higher-ticket items or services that don’t need to be purchased as often.

Local Events

There are likely many local events that you can participate in, whether that’s a trade show, job fair, or artisan market. Check out local event listings to see what upcoming events might be a good fit for your business. Keep in mind that you usually have to sign up weeks or sometimes months in advance and pay a fee if you want to be a vendor, so account for that as you plan your marketing calendar and budget.

There are so many effective marketing strategies that are free or cheap; they just take time or effort to implement. Do you have a favorite low-budget marketing strategy that didn’t make the list? Share it with us in the comments below so we can all learn from each other!