No matter what kind of business you are in, the majority of your
customers and prospects are likely to be internet users. Therefore lead
generation from online sources should always be a part of your marketing
and sales strategy.
However, most people believe that online lead generation requires a
lot of money. While this is partly true, it doesn’t always have to be
that way. If you know the right tactics and platforms, you can kick off
your online marketing and lead generation activities without spending
any money at all.
In fact, if you’re a startup or have budget limitations, I recommend
you start your marketing efforts using these tactics before making the
transition to paid options once you have sufficient funds for it.
Here are a few ways you can market your business effectively and generate targeted sales leads without any expenditure.
Note: I’m assuming that you already have a great
product and maintain the highest service standards. Without a solid
product, any marketing activity will only backfire.
1) Use Your Existing Traffic and Leverage Communities
When you start marketing your products or services online, always
have a good look at your existing website traffic. Study your audience
in detail using your Google Analytics account and see if you can identify their preferences and needs. Create content that answers their concerns and resolves their problems
Also look at the traffic sources to your website. You might find that
many of your visitors come from different groups and forums. You can
target these forums and communities to convey your message.
If you don’t have a website yet, study the blogs of your established
competitors and see the kind of content they are creating. Also study
the comments on their blog posts to get insights on your target market.
Join the discussions on forums like Quora, LinkedIn Groups, Reddit
and other niche specific forums and answer the questions that people are
asking about your industry. Quora, in particular, is a great place
where startups can establish their brand image and attract leads by
answering questions.
Similarly, you can post advertisements on classified portals like OLX
and Craiglist to get free exposure. One of the hottest startups in the
world, AirBnB, started their online marketing efforts by posting on
Craiglist.
2) Use Incentives to Generate Word of Mouth
Using different incentives for your target users is a great way to
get the ball rolling and generate word of mouth about your product. Your
incentives can be anything from a direct discount on products to free
giveaways through social media competitions.
Competitions and giveaways work particularly well with Facebook and
Twitter users, and can help you attract dozens of leads in very little
time.
Another way incentivize your users is to offer them something extra
if they refer their contacts. For example, Yesware, an email tracking
startup, increases the email tracking limit of its free users if their
referred contacts sign up for a free Yesware account. This encourages
people to spread the word for free.
3) Offer Attractive Affiliate Programs
Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make lots of sales
without spending any money at all. The concept of affiliate marketing is
simple: people sign up as affiliates of your products, promote them
using a variety of techniques, and only get paid when they actually make
a sale.
So it’s a win-win situation for you.
To attract influential affiliates, you need to have a great product
and an attractive commission structure. You can use different affiliate
marketing forums, like Warrior Plus and Warrior Forums, to find
affiliates for your products. Or you can use affiliate management tools
like Affiliate Platform to track and manage your affiliate sales.
4) Upsell and Cross Sell Existing Clients
Upselling and cross selling are classical sales concepts that are
widely used in the corporate sector. You can apply them to your online
sales as well and generate more revenue without any marketing.
Upselling means convincing your existing customers to spend more
money to buy a higher priced alternative of their current product or
service package.
Cross selling is when you recommend a product that complements the existing product that your customer has.
There are a number of ways to encourage your current customers to upsell or cross sell.
- You can offer increased support and service features on upsell and cross-sell.
- You can offer bundled products at a slightly discounted rate.
- You can offer partner products at a discounted rate for customer who upsell.
5) Offer Free Product/Service Trials
If you have a good product/service, and you believe that you can
really add value to your customer’s business, you should consider
offering free service trials for limited time periods. This will give
your prospects a good look at your product and its usefulness.
However, you need to be careful in selecting the right prospects for
free trials. You need to offer this to prospects who have genuine need
of your product and can also spend money purchasing it. Or you need to
target someone highly influential in your industry who can refer clients
and recommend your services to their followers.
For example, QuickSprout generated dozens of business leads by
offering free SEO services to media outlets like TechCrunch and Gawker
in exchange for testimonials, PR and backlinks.
6) Focus on Influencer Outreach
Every industry has certain influential people or organizations who’re
trend setters. People follow them closely and take their opinion
seriously. If you can build a solid relationship with the right
influencers, you can generate tons of business leads with just a few
recommendations.
While shortlisting your target influencers, make sure they’re people
who’re closely connected with your target market. Approach them on
Twitter, connect on LinkedIn, get active on their blog, comment on their
posts, share their content, build conversations with them on social
media and give them early access to your products and services.
A great example of this strategy is NinjaOutreach, an outreach
application. The developers of this application approached influencers
in all their target niches and offered them early access to the product.
In return, they just asked for reviews. As a result, they boosted their
sales numbers significantly through referral sales.
7) Use Smart Guest Blogging
There’s no better way to build your brand image, market your services with authority and generate new leads than smart and effective guest blogging.
Don’t guest blog for SEO or backlinks. Rather, target high authority
blogs that are popular with your target market. Create high quality
content that demonstrates your niche expertise. Offer this content to
your target blogs for free.
Many marketers and businesses fail at guest blogging because they’re
too focused on promoting their own products. This is the wrong approach.
Guest blogging works the best when you focus on creating high quality
content and delivering value. If your content is great, people will
look at your author bio at the end of the post (where you should provide
a backlink to your product’s landing page).
You can mention your own products in your guest posts, but only when
they truly add value. Otherwise even your backlink in the author bio
will be enough to send you leads, if your post is high quality.
8) Use Your Existing Network and Relationship
No matter how new your business is, you must have an existing network
of business professionals and personal relationships. You can leverage
them to generate the initial momentum for your business and get early
wins.
I personally suggest building your online assets (website, social
media pages and profiles) before reaching out to your network so that
their referrals see a refined version of your brand.
Send them a quick email asking them to spread the word about your product and refer anyone who might find it useful.
You will be surprised to see how effective this small step can be.
Wrapping It Up
As I said at the start, online marketing doesn’t always have to cost
you money. There are numerous ways to get highly targeted exposure
without spending a penny. Companies like AirBnB, DropBox and Google are
just a few examples of giant corporations who started their marketing
activities using free platforms. The methods I have listed in this post
are more than enough to kick off your marketing activities and provide
you a solid launching pad for future marketing and lead generation
strategies.
Have you tried any of these methods? Or can you add to this list and
make this post more valuable? I would love to hear from you in the
comments.
