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Grow Your Local Business
6 Totally Free Ways to Market Your Business Locally (Even with a $0 Budget)
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Leslie Presnol
Hey, really quick. Have you been thinking about joining the LocalPreneur Academy? But you want to know exactly what we would do inside to grow your business and how it would work? Click the link in the Show Notes to book your consult. Call with me and we'll talk one on one just about your business. We'll talk about what's working and the exact things we'll implement to help you stand out locally, reach more people in your city and bring in more clients. Pick the date and time that works for you and I'll see you there. You are listening to the Grow youw Local Business Podcast where local marketing expert and life coach Leslie Presnol shares the strategies and the mindset to help you reach more people in your city and bring in a steady stream of clients. All right, let's dive in. Hey, welcome to episode 111. Today I'm sharing six totally free ways to market your business locally. So if you struggle with marketing because you're on a limited budget, or you think you can't market or be really effective in your marketing or reaching people in your city, then today's episode is for you. Or even if you just want some new marketing ideas that are really budget friendly. I know so many of my clients and people in my audience tell me but that they want to get in front of their local audience without spending a fortune or they don't really have an ads budget or a marketing budget at all right now and they really just feel the budget constraints around the cost of marketing or being able to pay for any sort of promotions. But that's okay because I am actually all about organic marketing. I know there are some startup cost or expenses we have in our business that we may end up paying for things like websites, business cards, branding photos like premium subscriptions of certain services or apps like Canva and things like that. But I really did want the things that I came up with in this episode to be totally free stuff. 90% of what I teach my clients inside the LocalPreneur Academy is organic marketing. I do teach paid ads, but we do rely heavily on getting our very first clients and bringing in more clients and even getting fully booked without any ads at all. And I see my clients do it over and over. So I do know it's 100% possible, more than possible, to run very successful businesses without ads or without an ads budget. So I have clients who have hit multiple six figures in their local businesses without ever running a single Facebook ad and Instagram ad or Google Ads, or without paying for any Sort of media ads locally. So it is more than possible. And I don't want you to think that you have to have a big budget. I just hear that a lot. So that is one belief shift that I wanted to give you in this episode. There's just so much available to us now. We have access to people everywhere, online and offline as local business owners. I think that's kind of the magic of being a local business owner. Our people are everywhere and really accessible and it's totally free to reach them. And I love that thought. It's totally free to reach them. It's free to meet people, it's free to introduce yourself, it's free to connect with them, it's free to get them to see you. It's all free. So let's just start there with that shift in belief that you do not need to have a big budget or any budget to just meet people who live in your city. The things that I'm going to share today, you really do just need your phone and the Internet for not even a website. No premium features, no upgraded features, just the free stuff and your time. Okay, so the first free way to market your business locally is on social media. So that one's obvious, but it is worth saying and worth saying. First, social media is free. You can post on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, whatever platform your people are on without spending a cent. So the second way to market your business, and to maybe even make the first one work a little bit better, is to is by engaging on social media. This is totally free, and this is one that people skip because it does cost you your time, but it can be just minutes. But by commenting on local businesses, post by following other local accounts, engaging with people's content and stories, this is where your business name gets seen over and over, and it's 100% free visibility. I teach the local engagement strategy inside the LocalPreneur Academy. But just commenting like 10 times a day or on 10 posts a day, or engaging with 10 stories a day, that adds up to over 10,000 times that your name would be visible in a year among your local people. 10,000 times for absolutely free. That's 10,000 times for people to see your name that you get your attention, and for them to have the opportunity to click back to your Instagram profile for 100% free. Okay, so the third free way to market your business locally is by posting in local Facebook groups. These are places where your target people already are. These are communities that have already been grown and curated so when you see people asking questions, asking for suggestions or recommendations, this is when you show up and answer. Being helpful, being visible for free. Now, I do have an entire podcast episode on how to show up in local Facebook groups, and I'm going to link that in the show notes just so I could talk about this all day, but just so we could keep this kind of a short and sweet list episode. But there's so much good stuff in that episode to make sure that people start recognizing you in these free groups as an expert and as that local go to person and that they see you and they know you as a business owner even if you can't explicitly advertise your business. I know there can be a lot of rules in Facebook groups. I have rules even in my own Facebook group. So don't write this one off until you go listen to that episode. But being involved in participating in local Facebook groups is a great free way to market your business. The fourth way to market your business for free is through collaborations. So partnerships or collaborations are free. They may just cost you time or possibly cost in products or cost in like your service. But if done effectively, you grow your audience because you tap into the other person's audience, you get new clients and you expand your visibility. So there is a lot of return on your investment here. There's also a lot of ways to partner and collaborate. So this could be through giveaways, through a product or a service giveaway. There is a bit of a cost there. This could be through events, this could be through workshops. This could be through product bundles that you sell together. This could be through you just partnering and collaborating on a social media post together. That one is actually truly free. You could do live videos together. You could share each other's content and just promote each other and partner that way. That is totally free. The idea is just that you're both getting exposure into each other's audience for free. The fifth way to market your business locally for free is by pitching yourself to local media with a story idea. Now, I don't know if you guys know this, but my very first degree is in print journalism. So I worked in newspapers and magazines before I started my local blog, which essentially became my first business. But when I was a news reporter, I had to write a certain number of stories a week. Like the newspaper comes out every day no matter what, or the news goes on air on TV every day or multiple times a day no matter what. So there have to be story ideas. The reporters have to come up with story ideas instantly And I loved it as a reporter and like, truly appreciated it when people came to me and pitched me their idea. A lot of times business owners, I, they tell me that they're scared to pitch the media. So I always tell them my perspective as a former journalist, because I don't want you to be scared. On the flip side, once I started my business and I started hosting events, I was always then pitching the news media about what I was doing too. So don't be shy about sending a press release or pitching a story about, you know, what, what you're doing, or if you're doing something really original or unique or you have something going on or just your brand story, the story behind what you're doing or, you know, even adding your events to your calendar or you want to tell them, pitch them the story about your event coming up. This is free vis without you having to pay for any media ad space. Okay? So the sixth way to market your business for free is to ask customers to share. Ask for the testimonials, ask for the Google reviews, ask for the photos, ask for them to share on social media. Ask for them to refer you to their friends. Ask for them to share about you on their stories. Ask for them to reshare your post. Ask for them to tag you in their post. Most people, especially your happiest customers or clients or even your friends or family or peers, they want to support you. They want to see you succeed, and they have really good intentions to support you. They are meaning to leave that review after they've worked with you. And like, they're meaning to post about you. It's okay to remind them or to send them that text or email to ask them. I recently got my colors done, like a color analysis, and it was a great experience. And this was maybe two or so weeks ago. And then this past weekend, we had my daughter's first birthday party. And over the weekend I got a text from the stylist who did the color analysis. And she was asking for my. My review and a testimony, a testimonial. And I haven't done it yet. And just this morning, like, first thing this morning when I woke up, I was like, oh my gosh, I have to go leave a review. I haven't done it yet. So I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget to do it later today. And it's been a few days now since she's asked me to do that. And I'm saying this because I want to do it like I have the intention to do it. I'm so excited to we just had a birthday party and it feels like all the things kind of going on this weekend and I've just kind of forgotten about it. And even if I had completely forgotten about it and if she would have sent me another text message, I would have been super grateful for the reminder because I do want to support her. I want her to have all the success in the world because I had such a great experience working with her. So don't be afraid to to ask for for the share for the testimonial, for for the photos, for the tags like ask for all of it. Okay, so to wrap up, those are six totally free ways to market yourself locally. And if you're sitting there thinking, okay, I love these ideas, but I need help actually doing them and implementing them and following through. Like I need help creating posts, coming up with post ideas to post on social media that actually work and get me seen locally. I need help figuring out what to say in local Facebook groups. Or I need help promoting myself and just getting over that fear. I need help pitching myself to possible collaborators. Or I've tried that and I just get crickets back. Or I need help writing press releases or coming up with story ideas or even finding people to even pitch myself to in the media. Or I need a system for collecting testimonials from clients. This is exactly what we do inside the localpreneur Academy. We work through all of this. This is my coaching program designed specifically for local business owners who want to grow their visibility, who want to attract more local clients, and who want to become the go to in their industry without wasting a ton of time or a ton of money or energy on strategies that don't work locally. So inside you'll get my step by step system plus weekly coaching and personalized support to help you apply everything, including everything we've mentioned in this episode, to your specific business. If you want to check it out, click the link in the show notes and I will see you inside. Hey, if you enjoyed today's episode, I want to invite you to check out my program, the LocalPreneur Academy. This is the only program for small business owners who want to become the local go to in their industry with a steady stream of clients. You can find more information@lesliepressnel.com and I'll see you inside.