If you’ve never been involved in starting a business, then you don’t really know how hard it is to attract attention on social media. When your startup is brand new, you, naturally, don’t have a lot of money, but you still want to promote it in any way possible. While some would say that you can’t do that without piles of money, that’s not true.
There are many ways to connect with the potential clients and customers, and most of those ways are cheap if not free. That’s exactly why you shouldn’t feel invisible just because you don’t have a lot of money or a high-profile name attached to your company or product.
The bad news is that you don’t have a lot of chances to nail your pitch. That’s tough, but it can work to your advantage. You’ll be more careful, and you’ll carefully consider all the options available to you. The good news is that somewhere out there, someone is probably very interested in what you have to say or sell. You just have to know which buttons to push and who exactly to contact.
Send a press release
Sending a press release to popular blogs that deal with internet startups should be your first step. While this step is maybe not the most important one or the most efficient, you still have to put your name out there.
When you’ve completed this step, and a press release about your business has been read by many on a tech-related blog, start looking for a journalist who might want to listen to what you have to say. You can find them on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, but be careful. Journalists are often contacted by many entrepreneurs who want the same thing as you do. That’s exactly why you should research their field of work and let them know what you like about it and why. Of course, giving your product for free to your chosen journalist will work too. After all, we all love free things.
Cross promotion
Figure out your target user base and find a way to get to it. Depending on your product, you can promote in a doctor’s office, or even in a school. If your business offers the so-called value-added service to other businesses, there’s a big chance that they will feature your product on their site if you do the same for them.
Promotional products
Promotional products are used globally to promote businesses, ideas, and much more. The creation and distribution of these products started in the 19th century, and they’re still here, so that means they’re working as intended.
Simple products used for guerilla marketing campaigns such as T-shirts, key chains, or stress balls by Stressball Planet can prove to be invaluable to you, and they’re not as expensive as you might think. Give away your promo products whenever you can and reach out to a large number of people.
Tip: Be secretive. Tingle people’s imagination. Let them figure out what those promo products mean. That way, you’ll get them involved in your business, because, let’s face it, none of us can resist a good mystery. There’s a bit of Sherlock Holmes in all of us.
Social media
Good old social media. What would we do without it? Make a profile page for your business on every social media platform and send your product as a gift to influential people. Some of them will thank you and make a post about you that hundreds of their followers will see, and after that, a word-of-mouth marketing strategy will do the rest.
When you’re new in business, you can’t afford to waste too much of your money. Use simple, cheap, and effective ways to put your company’s name out there and wait patiently. Good things come to those who wait.