If you’re an online startup with little to no marketing budget, you’re probably feeling overwhelmed at the thought of lead generation. Many entrepreneurs are led to believe they must spend money in order to get their name out there, but this simply isn’t the case.
Marketers are telling the world that without social media advertising you are missing out on huge opportunities. But these channels can be expensive for a startup when you’re talking about paid promotion, and lead to less than stellar results.
What you really need is an email list. You don’t own the information from your contacts on social media, but an email list with qualified leads is invaluable. So, today, we’re going to talk about ways to generate leads for that list that is so essential to your business – at little to no cost.
Network – Both In Person and Online
If you’re a sole proprietor, it’s likely you’re not working from an office surrounded by professionals in your niche each day. You need to get out there and meet other professionals who may potentially become your clients one day. Networking events are great for this reason.
You can begin by browsing social media or sites like Meetup to find free networking events in your area. In my town alone, there are probably hundreds of small businesses networking groups that meet on a regular basis. You can print out business cards from places like Vistaprint for a pretty affordable price. Once you’ve made it to an event, be sure to spread your card like a wildfire and get as many cards as you can in return so you can begin building your list.
The same theory goes for online networking. Sites like Facebook and LinkedIn have hundreds of online groups for professionals to join where you can share content and connect with other entrepreneurs. Here’s just one example of a LinkedIn group I’m a member of. There are so many online groups available to join for just about every niche you can think of. Reach out to other startup owners to and start conversations about some of the challenges they are facing. You never know what kind of business opportunities it may lead to.
Dig Into Your Personal Contacts and Build that List
That’s right, grab the Rolodex, or more likely, open up your personal email account or LinkedIn account and take a good look at the list of friends, family, and colleagues you have that may be interested in your new business. You may be surprised at what you find. Once you have a quality list that you are happy with, you can start marketing via email for free. We’ll cover that in our next blog post.
Web Forms
If you’re an online startup, you’ll want to include web forms to encourage your contacts to subscribe or opt-in to marketing emails or newsletters that you’ll be sending out. Companies like Squarespace, Wix, and GoDaddy offer simplistic web templates at little to no cost. They also offer the ability to add pop-up forms to your site so you can capture subscriber information. Sites like Squarespace have plug-ins so subscribers are automatically added to a list of your choice. Squarespace connects directly to Mailchimp, an email marketing engine, as well as Google Docs for easy access to your subscribers.
Update Your Email Signature
This may sound very basic, but chances are if you are just starting out, you haven’t created a professional signature for clients to find you when you are corresponding with them over email. Update your signature to include all the essential components for contacting your business: your logo, your website, contact information, and of course social media buttons.
Start a Blog
Content is king. Blogging is another way to get your story out there without spending a considerable amount of money. If you are a writer yourself, blogging will only cost you your time. Create blogs that are of value to your clients. Share them on social media, through email, or with other bloggers that may be willing to repost your content. Don’t forget to add your contact information or a short bio with a link to your site on any content you share. And finally, add pop-up forms to the blog portion of your site so readers can subscribe to your content when you publish new content.
Check back in next week as we talk about how to execute your first email marketing campaign without spending a dime.
