Free. Yep. We said the magic word. “Nothing’s free,” you say. Well, ok. Maybe not completely, absolutely, free. But pretty close. The following is a list of ways to promote your business for free – they will cost you some time, but we believe they’ll get you some great results.

1. Email campaigns: Engage your contacts. Let your existing customers know what you are up to. Send personalized product promotions and company announcements.

2. Maximize your online presence: It may seem obvious in this day and age, but we’ll say it anyway: Create a website for your business. Most future customers will find you in a basic internet search. You may feel that you are too busy doing the business to create and/or maintain a website, but your customers need to access information about your products and services on the web. (By the way, it needs to look and work perfectly on a mobile device.)

3. Blog Posts: A well written and curated blog will drive readers to your website while establishing yourself as an authority in your industry. An established blog can continue to create traffic to your website and create leads with content that was posted months before as people search for related topics and find your content, website and your business.

4. Social Media Posts: Expand the scope of your connections: draw traffic to your website through social media posts that share content others will want to share with their friends, family and co-workers.

5. Face-to-face networking: We recently heard a talk from Mark Williams, President & CEO, Brokers International LTD, with an idea so common-sense that it’s brilliant. Actually participate in your community. Meet people. Have onversations. Listen to what they do. Learn about them. Not necessarily to drum up business, but as you are socializing, you might just find some potential overlapping interests or obvious ways to connect. You might actually have fun in the process!

Growing and maintaining your business can be as simple as creating a set of online and in-person practices.  Engage potential and current clients through content on your website, on your blog, and in social media posts.  Maintain relationships with current clients through personalized email campaigns and never forget that nothing beats a great face-to-face conversation. And handshakes are free.

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