Free or Low-Cost Digital Marketing Ideas

Digital marketing is so powerful in part because it allows for flexible campaigns. You have the opportunity to market in such creative ways, with so many different channels at your disposal that it’s enough to daze or confuse anybody. You don’t need to spend money on Google and Facebook advertising if you don’t have it. There are plenty of free or low-cost digital marketing ideas that will take you further than the digital marketing efforts of most businesses.

Facebook & Instagram Profiles 

If your customer base uses Facebook and/or Instagram, make the most of it by creating a free Facebook page or a free Instagram profile. Then fill it with creative content: engage with your customers, host competitions and just keep active. It’ll take a while for this to gain traction, but you need to stick with it to get results in the long term. 

Join Communities on Reddit

Redditors, as they’re known, hate obvious marketing attempts (and many businesses do try to do these), and if your customer base fits Reddit’s demographics, start contributing. Try to add real value to conversations using your expertise and make your brand as human as possible. Maybe try an AMA, and try to use humor when you can. 

Try to Get Viral 

Don’t appear desperate, but keep in mind ideas that other people could think are neat in the hopes that they could go viral online. If you have interesting, funny and creative ideas, other people might want to view them for entertainment, which is the best kind of marketing! Plenty of meme sites have featured creative marketing examples. If you want some ideas, you could have interesting merch, business cards customized to your style featuring optical illusions or funny jokes (maybe an American Psycho reference?), or collaborations with artists. 

Get Involved with Your Local Community

Local papers and blogs are always looking for ideas. If you’re a competent writer, or if somebody on your team is, take advantage of that and offer to write for a local news website or local paper. You don’t have to go too heavy on promoting your product, but if you come across as an expert on a particular trend, you can mention that you do it professionally and it will help to give your brand some authority. You can then post this all over your social media and add the local newspaper to your “as featured on” section on your website.

Webinars

Webinars are live video conferences that either present a product/service or give a masterclass about something that people will find valuable. They are also a great marketing tool. A good effective example is when an investment company runs a webinar trying to both attract and educate potential investors about a particular niche. 

Create an Educational Course
People love to learn things and if you’re an expert at a particular niche you should have some lessons to teach. If you put these lessons into an extended eLearning course, you can send them out via YouTube or even better for free as part of an exclusive newsletter.