How to Promote Your Business Online and Locally

Starting a $50,000+/year business is simple, but promoting your business successfully can be a challenge. That’s why I’m sharing how to promote your business so that your revenue and income can grow exponentially.

Whether your business is online, local or both, most of these methods listed will work for you.

The first secret to promoting your business successfully is to choose one to three methods to start. If you try to promote your business using all 10 methods from day 1, then you’re likely to burn out before seeing success.

When you commit to too many business promotional methods at one time, you risk stretching yourself too thin and failing in all areas.

If you have the budget to hire someone to assist in the promotion of your business, then your success may be tenfold. The ultimate goal is to only take on as much as you and your business can handle.

10 Ways To Promote Your Business

Marketing can be complicated for any business, let alone a business that you run from home. Businesses like yours are often small and don’t have the resources of larger ones, and far too many “experts” have tricked you into thinking that marketing is some massively complicated enterprise. It requires intelligence and expertise, to be sure, but it’s not rocket science. You don’t need to make things more complicated than they need to be. To that end, here are the best marketing tools and promotional methods available.

1. Learn Content Marketing (SEO)

Writing content that your target audience is searching for is the number one promotional method that I recommend.

Creating content that caters to search engines and human readers is called SEO (search engine optimization). This simply means that Google knows exactly what you are talking about in your content and can show it to those searching for the answers you provide.

Think about it. If you have a question, where do you go for quick answers? Google. It’s easy and you can type in any search query and get an answer to your question almost instantly.

Learn how to SEO your content online (this works for local, national and international online businesses).

Blogging is a great way to consistently publish valuable SEO content. According to available data, blogs are viewed by more than 409 million people every month! This, of course, is a massive number, and it drives home a fundamental point. Blogs can be great at marketing, selling and getting information out about your business.

Additionally, blogs can be fantastic when it comes to SEO, as you can use blogs for these purposes if you have taken the time to understand how people find your website and what keywords work best for you.

2. Pin on Pinterest

Many businesses find major success on Pinterest. It’s a search engine that often gets put in a category with social media. But Pinterest that and much more.

Users come to Pinterest to search for ideas, products, pictures, tutorials and much more. If you visit Pinterest and search for a few key terms that describe your business, you can quickly see if your topic is popular on the platform.

Growing your Pinterest following and reach is simple once you’ve learned the basics and found a strategy that works for you.

The online course called Pinteresting Strategies is the first instructional I followed and found success with on Pinterest.

3. Grow a Following on Facebook

Some businesses are perfectly optimized for social shares naturally. But more often than not, gaining traction on Facebook takes proactive work and advertising.

I rarely pay to promote a post on Facebook. In fact, my success with promoting my business on social media doesn’t come from my small business page or group, it comes from proactively helping others in larger groups that don’t belong to me.

For example, by answering questions about SEO (that I love answering), businesses reach out to me to help them work on their website.

This works in many service-based businesses because it builds trust and relationships with others in your niche.

4. Share Graphics and Pictures on Instagram

Instagram is a highly visual platform that allows you to connect with others based on interest. Many businesses promote on Instagram and grow a large following of raving fans.

A good way to find out if Instagram (or any other social media platform) is good for your business, open the platform and search for businesses like yours. Are others finding success? Do they have a high number of followers and interaction on their posts?

If you enjoy taking pictures or have to for your business anyway, then sharing them on Instagram could be a great promotional method for your business.

Related: How to Get Paid to Get Paid to Like Instagram Posts

5. Start Building an Email List

Your email list is an important way to build dedicated customers and clients.

For example, if you were a book writer and publish something new each year, your email list will be there waiting for each new book announcement.

Email marketing is nearly 40 times more effective at gaining customers than social media channels. As this statistic alone exemplifies, the need to continue to market via Email is greater now than ever. Even better, there are many free Email services available that you can use which can help you send high-quality content, grow your audience and track your success.

Ultimately, the best services are not going to be free. However, if you compare email marketing services before choosing one, you can often start out for free (or cheap), and you’ll pay more only as your list (and your income) grows.

Use your email list to help your target audience get to know you and when it comes time to promote your business, they will be happy to purchase your product or services.

6. Learn Affiliate Marketing

If you know anything about affiliate marketing, then you may think it odd that I should mention it as a way to promote your business.

I’m not talking about the typical way that requires you to sell third-party products and services, I’m talking about you being in the shoes of that third party.

Set up an affiliate program or a referral system that allows others who know and trust your business to refer their friends and family to you.

Word-of-mouth recommendations are some of the best ways to get new customers and clients. Why not give back to those who recommend you by sharing a percentage of your earnings?

7. Post on Craigslist

This may sound like an odd way to promote your business, but I had to share it because Craigslist is where I found my first client.

When I first started my home-based business, I had no idea where to find my first client. I didn’t even know what type of work I was looking for or how much to charge for my services.

But after typing out a detailed, well-written advertisement for my writing services, I landed my very first client from a free Craigslist ad.

Even if your services are not local only, Craigslist could help you reach a new audience in your niche.

8. List Your Business in Directories

Especially useful for local businesses, online directories are a great way to promote your business.

If you’re running a business that focuses on local services or products, then making your business easy to find is imperative.

Make sure your business is listed in local directories and online directories. Many people are searching for local recommendations online, and finding you first could lead to more business and income.

9. Publish in Local Newspapers

Many people still read the local newspaper. If there is affordable ad space, consider listing your business there.

Many online businesses can also be found in large newspaper advertisements. Don’t underestimate the power and reach of the paper!

10. Post on Bulletin Boards

Have you ever visited a local restaurant and noticed a bulletin board with papers tacked to it? People still read those!

Create a nice advertisement that explains your product or service and be sure to provide your phone number or website address.

Related: How to Get Paid to Post Ads

Bonus: Use Direct Mail

Despite the massive emphasis shifting to digital and video, direct mail remains highly relevant and popular. Of course, there are some demographics for whom it works better than others.

In order to use direct mail effectively, you have to invest a bit of time and make sure it is in line with your overall marketing strategy and data collection capabilities. Can you collect a list of customers or potential customers? What lists can you buy and then use for those purposes? Thankfully, all of this information can be found and is very useful.

Tips on How to Keep Your Marketing Strategy Up-to-Date

The world of business changes very rapidly. This is especially true of home-based businesses, as this sector is highly competitive. Keeping your marketing strategy up-to-date is crucial because marketing drives revenue. Watching your competitors, upgrading your website and education are three ways to do this.

Watch Your Competitors

Keeping a close eye on the competition is critical because they are challenging you for customers. How are they promoting their business? If they’re successful with a certain method, perhaps you should adopt some of their practices. You might also be able to identify a weak point that could be exploited. For example, if you have a blog and your competitors haven’t covered a topic yet, you could research it and become an authority on the subject.

Upgrade Your Website

Keep your website up to date with the latest development trends. This can mean everything from making it SEO-friendly, software and design styles. Consider some of the latest development trends when building your new website. Design styles change from time-to-time. These trends are important to pay attention to. It’ll be hard to generate trust with visitors if your site looks like it’s completely outdated.

It’s important to keep the software you use up to date. This is especially true for WordPress, which powers millions of websites. Not keeping up with updates will make your site vulnerable to hackers. Search engine optimization (SEO) can drive massive amounts of traffic regularly, at no cost to you. However, you must keep your site SEO friendly and this means you must stay on top of the latest search engine updates.

Further Your Education

Keeping up to date with digital marketing strategies can be overwhelming. There are so many different tools and techniques and new ones are emerging constantly. It pays to follow the experts who digest all this information and refine it into actionable advice.

If you have the time, consider taking a course. You can find these at Udemy and Skillshare. The material is very affordable and contains a tremendous amount of information. Just be sure they aren’t out-of-date. Follow specialist websites. For SEO, there is MOZ and SearchEngineLand. Or if you prefer podcasts, listen to Neil Patel. Interact with fellow business owners and marketing professionals at LinkedIn and Facebook groups. This is free and some people enjoy utilizing social media more rather than purely intaking information.

Business is fast-paced. Keep your marketing strategy up-to-date by observing the competition, upgrading your website, and furthering your education.

Promoting Your Business Requires Proactive Measures

There are so many people that need your business. It’s important that you promote your business in as many locations as you’re able to upkeep.

But if you’re new to online business, remember that promotional burnout is a real thing. It’s more important to be consistent in fewer places than it is to be present in all places.

In other words, if you can only keep up with two or three of these business promotional methods, then you’re far better off than showing up to all of them once but then never returning again.

Marketing requires time, energy and money, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. You simply have to identify the best and most efficient way of connecting with your potential customers, then craft a message that will help you reach them. With effort and expertise, this can be done.

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