Marketing without a Budget 1

MARKETING
WITHOUT A BUDGET

Free
eBook

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 Marketing without a Budget 2

CO NTENTS
03 INTRODUCTION

04 MARKETING PLAN: KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO DO

07 ENGAGING CONTENT: USE YOUR EXPERTISE

09 DIY MARKETING: GETTING IT DONE IS EASIER THAN YOU THINK

11 ESTABLISH YOURSELF: DIRECTORY LISTINGS & REVIEWS

12 GET THE WORD OUT: SOCIAL MEDIA & EVENTS

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 Marketing without a Budget 3

i
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION

Marketing can seem like a daunting task. Websites,

SEO, social media, and email campaigns – where do
you start? It seems even scarier when you don’t have
a budget to allocate to your marketing efforts. Is
marketing without a budget even worth the effort?
Can you get anything for free these days?
The answer is a resounding YES! You can market
your business without a budget. In fact, most
marketing tasks can be accomplished for FREE if
you know what to do.

How do you figure out

what you can or should
do without a budget?

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MARKETING PLAN:
KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO DO
Marketing Plan
Marketing is not an exact science. It
involves trial and error. When you find
something that works, you should stick
with it.
Developing a marketing plan will help
grow your business by identifying the
marketing tasks to focus on to achieve
results. Market consistently and plan
things out to make marketing
manageable and not an excess time
constraint.
Building a Marketing Plan
¤¤ Determine what you are able to invest
¤¤ Identify the biggest gap in your marketing
¤¤ Find opportunities to bridge that gap
¤¤ Prioritize opportunities
¤¤ Measure results
¤¤ Make adjustments to the plan
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Marketing without a Budget 4
Marketing Goals
If you don’t have a budget, it’s still
possible to come up with a marketing
plan that works for you. You can spend
a lot of money on a marketing plan -
but you don’t have to! There are many
resources online that can help, like
these 6 sample marketing plans.
State Your Long and Short Term Goals
Are you opening a new business?
Do you need 10 more clients a month?
Do you want to open another brick and
mortar store for your business?
Assess your budget
and outline your
business goals.
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 Marketing without a Budget 5

MARKETING PLAN: KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO DO

Build a Marketing Plan

Determine What You are Able to Invest
If you don’t have any money to spend, do you have time on your
side? Money can help marketing efforts but so can time. If you do
have time to spend on marketing, learn about social media and
SEO or attend in-person networking events. If you don’t have a
ton of time, that’s ok too!

The most important thing about marketing is being consistent.

Commit the time to make marketing work – whether it’s 20
minutes a day or 20 hours a month!

Identify the Biggest Gap in Your Marketing

What’s your marketing challenge? Are you unable to reach
customers? Perhaps you’re having difficulty setting your business
apart from competitors? Or, are you struggling to close sales
once you have people in the door?

You might have more than one challenge; that’s ok. Once you
figure out what you need to work on, you can focus your efforts.

Identify Opportunites to Bridge the Gap

What, in the short term, can you do to lessen the gap
between what you want and what you have now? Work on
finding solutions to your marketing challenge.

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MARKETING PLAN: KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO DO

Prioritize Opportunities
You know what you need to do, now rank those things in order
of importance! Do the easiest thing first, or, if some efforts
depend on others, do those before anything else.

You don’t start buying paint for a barn that you haven’t built yet
– the same goes for marketing. If you don’t have a website, you
should get one before developing a social media presence. You
need a website for people to visit before you interact with them
on social media.

Measure Results
Find out what works by tracking and measuring your results.
Install tracking codes on your website to determine where
your customers are coming from.

The benefit of knowing this is so that you can stop wasting

time on things that don’t work and focus on marketing tasks
that DO work.

Make Adjustments to the Plan

There will be fluctuations in marketing success. Some tasks
will work better than others. Keep track of what works and make
adjustments accordingly.

Seasonal businesses will see this, as will other businesses

like catering businesses who have busier times of the year.

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 Marketing without a Budget 7

ENGAGING CONTENT:
USE YOUR EXPERTISE

Use Your Expertise Share Knowledge

You’re an expert in your industry – use What do your potential customers want
that knowledge and expertise to your to learn? When you write a blog post, it
advantage! should contain relevant information for
your industry that your customers want
You opened a business because you
to read. Each piece of your content
know a lot about it and have a passion
becomes part of your knowledge base -
for it. The most important thing to your
what your customers can trust.
customers is finding someone to help
them out.

That’s where you come in. Share your

knowledge and expertise to customers Give customers tips in an
and potential customers by providing
valuable information. ordered list, fun industry
Create Engaging Content with
facts, or ideas on how to
prepare for the upcoming
¤¤ Useful information that is relevant to your
business season or holiday.
¤¤ Helpful or interesting insider knowledge The more helpful you are,
¤¤ Graphics, videos, blogs, email, and social the more likely a potential
media
customer will be to refer to
¤¤ Repurposed content your business again.

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ENGAGING CONTENT: USE YOUR EXPERTISE

Reuse Content
One way to use your knowledge is by taking the knowledge and existing
content that you already have and presenting it in different ways.

This saves you time and effort in marketing. The more relevant
content you have in different forms, the more people you can reach.

Present One Idea in Different Forms

¤¤ Turn a data-filled blog post into an infographic

¤¤ Break a video down into a written tutorial
¤¤ Turn similar blog posts into an eBook
¤¤ Make a case study out of customer testimonials
¤¤ Separate a long post into shorter feature posts

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DIY MARKETING:
GETTING IT DONE IS EASIER THAN YOU THINK
DIY Marketing
One way to market without a budget is
by doing your marketing yourself. One
of the most common misconceptions of
marketing is thinking that you need to
pay a professional for services.
While there are things that are best left
up to the pros, there are plenty of tasks
that you can do for free, on your own.
Marketing Tasks to do Yourself
¤¤ Email, blogs, and company newsletters
¤¤ Social media
¤¤ Photographs
¤¤ Graphics
¤¤ Search Engine Optimization
¤¤ Limited Tracking & Analytics
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Marketing without a Budget 9
Written Content
Website • Blog Posts • Email Newsletters
You know your business better than
anyone else. That’s why you should be
the one to write the content.
Blog posts, emails, and newsletters are
all marketing activities that you can do
yourself without a budget. Written
content is the meat and potatoes of
your marketing. It tells customers who
you are, what you do, services you
provide, and the story of your business.
Don’t be intimidated by writing - it’s
easier than you think! Keep it casual
and enjoyable to read.
Write to your
customer like they are
a friend who needs
helpful information.
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DIY MARKETING: GETTING IT DONE IS EASIER THAN YOU THINK
Visual Content
Photographs
Stock photos are good to use on
websites and blog posts so add a
visual element to written content. Free
stock-type photos are available for use
on websites like Unsplash or create your
own stock photos for free with a high-
resolution camera camera.
Graphics
Make custom graphics for social media,
blogging, and email marketing for free
on websites like PicMonkey and Canva.
Experiment with different colors and
fonts that match your business type and
brand.
Video
YouTube and Instagram are video tools
that are free to use for your business
marketing. use video to provide
information to customers or show
an inside look at your business!
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Marketing without a Budget 10
SEO & Results Tracking
Search Engine Optimization
The best bet is to invest in professional
help when you set up your website, but
you can also work on SEO yourself. Use
marketing resources to learn about SEO.
Using alt tags on images and
performing keyword research will help
you improve your SEO. If you don’t have
a lot of time to invest, start with directory
listings, an search engine-optimized
website, and relevant blog content.
Results Tracking
Know what marketing tasks are working
for you in order to grow your business.
ThriveHive’s marketing platform with
tracked phone lines and landing pages
will show you which marketing activities
drive results.
Focus on the
marketing tasks that
get you results.
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 Marketing without a Budget 11

ESTABLISH YOURSELF:
DIRECTORY LISTINGS & REVIEWS:

Online Directories
The most basic marketing activities that small businesses Start with the
need to use do not require any money at all. Online biggest directories
directories and review sites are free and essential. first, listed below, to
maximize visibility:
Directory listings provide customers with your business
information like your website, phone number, and Google My Business
address so that you can be reached online. If your
Bing
business isn’t listed in online directories, it’s as though
your business does not even exist! You could be missing Yahoo
out on countless customers – particularly if someone is Yelp
looking for a local business.
Yellow Pages/
White Pages
Review Sites City Search
Word of mouth marketing is important for small business. FourSquare
Testimonials on your own website are good, but if you
want to maximize the effectiveness of positive reviews,
you need reviews on sites like Google Maps and Yelp.

Trouble Getting Reviews?

Consider asking loyal customers to write one. Make
it easy for customers to give feedback by listing your
business on multiple directories. The more places your
business is listed, the more reviews it can get!

Send a follow up email to customers asking if they were

happy with the service or product. In addition to making
customers feel valued, this encourages them to review
your business online.
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 Marketing without a Budget 12

GET THE WORD OUT:

SOCIAL MEDIA, EVENTS & PARTNERSHIPS

Social Media
Getting publicity for your business can cost money, but it can also
be free. Creating an online network on social media and engaging
with your followers can create a buzz about your business and
business events.

Start by establishing a presence on social media through sites like

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Engage with followers by liking,
sharing, and commenting on their updates to build rapport.

By establishing rapport and a strong

following, you can make connections
with people who may be able to help
you promote your business.

Do you have any followers who are writers or newscasters or

bloggers? Interact with them and keep them up to date on
newsworthy events or promotions that you’re doing for your
business. If you have something newsworthy, ask them if they
would be interested in covering it for a story. Just like you,
newscasters and bloggers are always looking for unique content to
share. If you get covered by an outlet with enough media presence,
this can certainly be a great way to promote your business.

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GET THE WORD OUT: SOCIAL MEDIA, EVENTS & PARTNERSHIPS
Events
Sometimes it seems that everything
is done online, but a lot of marketing
and networking is in person. Attending
events and meeting people face-
to-face is a great way to grow your
business.
What types of events should you go to?
It depends on your business industry
and can range from big tradeshows to
small local events.
A business that is targeting a national
audience will have more success at a
big tradeshow than a community event.
If you have a local business, getting
involved in the community and meeting
people makes more sense than going to
a large trade show.
Attend events
and meet people
face-to-face to
grow your business.
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Marketing without a Budget 13
Types of Events
Tradeshows
A booth at a tradeshow can be very
expensive, but attending the event as
a visitor is a cheaper or free option that
will give you access to industry leaders
and potential customers.
Community Events
Locally-oriented businesses can
be very successful at marketing
themselves through community events.
Volunteering your time to help others
is an effective way of marketing your
business.
Networking Groups
Find community members with
similar interests through groups like
Meetup.com or Facebook groups. This
is a good way of promoting your
business and networking with other
business owners.
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GET THE WORD OUT: SOCIAL MEDIA, EVENTS & PARTNERSHIPS

Partnerships
Going to events is great, but what
comes out of them can be even
greater! Take your marketing to the
next level by collaborating with other
business owners. Partnering with non-
competitive businesses that serve the
same clientele can be a great way to
build your business.

Once you have established a Partner with other

relationship, you can take these
partnerships to the next level by business owners
cross-promoting each other’s services
using your email lists, in-store flyers or and double your
coupons, and/or social media pages.

If you don’t have time to go to events

marketing!
to meet new people, think of the small
business owners you already know. Do
you have friends or family who own
businesses or vendors with whom you
have a relationship? Get creative!

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Marketing your business without
a budget doesn’t have to be hard.

Conclusion:
• Develop a marketing plan to figure out what to do.
• Use your expertise to produce helpful content based on what you
already know.
• Focus on marketing tasks that you can do yourself like creating
content, graphics, and social media.
• Track your efforts and see what works to get you customers.
• Establish your business on directory listings and review sites.
• Engage in person and on social media and collaborate with other
businesses.

ThriveHive is an all-in-one Guided Marketing

Platform that provides local businesses with a
marketing plan, a professional website, and the
tools and expertise to effectively manage all of
your marketing efforts, all in one place.

See how ThriveHive can help your business grow!

Request a Demo (It’s free!)

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