I was recently asked to share some quick tips on low-cost first step ways a small business could market itself. It turned out to be a pretty good brain dump and I thought I’d share it here as well. Enjoy.

Low-Cost Ways to Market a Small Business

In today’s world of internet and free WYSIWYG software, business owners can do much more themselves than ever before. So much so, it has even the marketing playing field between them and bigger companies. There are so many online resources that offer easy to use, free services for businesses starting out.

To start with, all businesses should have a website. These days if you don’t have an internet presence then you don’t exist. A basic website can cost as low as $100 a year and can be built very easily with the use of online WYSIWYG site builders like Weebly, Wix or SiteBuilder. These resources will walk you through securing your domain and building a beautiful website.

Once you have a site built, check out Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a bit more advanced, but nothing a business owner cannot learn from the easy tutorials. It is free as well. Google Analytics will help a business owner learn more about their website, track visitors, see how they are engaging and what they are interested in. Later on when they have a bit of money to spend on things like advertising, they can then dig into Google AdWords and leverage the Analytics data to make intelligent ad buys.

Next, they should build out their social media presence, which is all free. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedInare the usual go to, but don’t forget Yelp and Google. Creating content to position themselves as knowledgeable in their field is also free. Create a blog on your website to share trends, ideas and best practices. Use your smart phone to create small videos to share. And of course, cross post everything between your website and social media channels.

Once a business starts to have a following, ask customers to subscribe to a newsletter. There are several mass email sites, like MailChimp, that have a free level for businesses starting out. Then you can send out notifications to your customers on things like special offers, sales and new products.