Back to before we got started, it was easy to make a killing with digital marketing. All you got to do is rank some random blog spot website, or WordPress.com website, throw on some affiliate links and boom, and you're off to the races.
But things have changed a lot in marketing. In order to get decent results, most business owners have to invest a lot of money in traffic and a lot of money in automation, or content creation, or even social media.
The question is, how do you invest money, in order to get results with digital marketing?
In this article, to break down, can you still do digital marketing for free? And we’ll see the real cost of digital marketing.
Hi there, and welcome back to Serendipity Marketing. We're a digital marketing agency with a mission to help small businesses grow by applying psychology to their marketing strategies.
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The answer to the above question is in short, and we have a much longer version as well, which we'll go into, that what doesn't cost you money, will cost you time.
You can do digital marketing for free, as long as you're willing to make a consistent investment in time and effort, in order to get good results.
So, let's say hypothetically, you're willing to put in the time. If you're willing to put in the time, let us break down how you can do it for free and get results!
1. Give Free real value
The first tip we have for you is to give away something that's invaluable, for free.
Unlimited guides, free courses, self-discovery journeys, quizzes assessment tools, proprietary industry reports, data stats, this all helps.
Anything that's above and beyond.
You'll notice that we didn't really say to just write a blog post.
Well, that fact is that everyone is giving away a blog post for free.
If you're not going above and beyond, doing something that's different, more unique than the competition, you' won't do that well.
2. Leverage third party audiences
The second tip for you is to leverage third party audiences. For example, co-host webinars, co-host live and social media sessions on YouTube, or Facebook, or Instagram. Do round ups. You can hit up other people, do round ups, everyone wants to participate, because they're getting some love and some PR and you can link out to them.
Then, when you post that content, you can ask them to share it. That does really well.
You also want to blog consistently. You want to create video content and even do podcast interviews.
And, we know this may sound like a lot, but marketing has changed to Omnichannel approach, in which one channel won't be enough now, because everyone's doing more than one channel.
And these channels are getting competitive, which is why you need to take an Omnichannel approach.
3. Content marketing
The third tip we have for you is to use content marketing. When you're creating content, you can create evergreen content that continually ranks and continually produces results for you, year after year, even though you wrote that content you know, two, three years ago.
That's the beautiful part about content marketing.
Sure, you may need it updated here and there, but that doesn't take that long.
Now, as there's already over a billion blogs on the web, that's roughly one blog for every seven people, it means there's too much content that already exists.
So, the key with content marketing is to write stuff that people really want to read.
What we want you to do is to type in the keywords that you're trying to write content around and to Google Trends.
It could be one or two word phrases. It can be, you know, general theme based key words, like SEO or marketing.
Google Trends will show you the most trending keywords around those topics and the search volume they are getting, alongside getting more ideas about the keywords to use in your text.
So, it will tell you what you should be targeting, versus what you shouldn't be.
4. Video content
The fourth tip we have for you to get digital marketing for free is to push out a ton of video content. And when we say video content, we are not just talking about recording your video.
That could be on YouTube or Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn. We are also talking about doing live video.
You can do simulcasting, so that way you can go on live on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn, all at once.
Keep this in mind; YouTube is the second largest search engine. So by producing video content, you can get a ton of love, just from YouTube.
The Serendipity Marketing YouTube channel alone, gets more than 20% of its views just from search on any given month.
On the good months, we are getting over 30% of our views, just from search.
5. Podcast
The fifth tip e have for you is podcasting. At interesting stuff, according to Nielsen, 51% of the U.S. population has listened to a podcast and 80% of the people who listen, listen to almost each of the whole podcast episode.
In other words, they're truly glued. They're not just there for a few minutes and the bouncing away.
80% listen to the whole episode and are truly engaged, which means that when you have offers that you're pushing out in your podcast, there's a good chance you can get conversions from it as well.
Also, with podcasting, you can use syndication platforms, like Omnystudio, Podcast Blastoff, Zencast FM, Acast, Pinecast, Podomatic, ShoutEngine, Podigee.
Repurposing your other content and turning it into podcast content, is super easy.
You can just bust out your iPhone, start recording on it and then boom, start uploading it.
Alright, now before we move on with the next digital marketing for free strategies for high web traffic, have you ever thought about how much you should invest in marketing to generate constant business growth? Click the button below to calculate the ideal marketing budget you should allocate for higher visibility, engagement, and profit.
How much should you invest in Digital Marketing?
6. Facebook groups
The sixth tip we have for you to get digital marketing fro free is to use Facebook groups. Create a benefit-oriented group.
For example, you can create a group about growing your local business through Facebook apps.
You may not get a million members, but the members you have will be super engaged, and are much more likely to convert in the long run, because it's about a specific topic and that topic should be related to products and services that you offer.
You want to give away a ton of valuable tips, create content and video content, not just link out to your site, but content that just keeps people on these platforms and educates.
The moment you create content that links people off, you'll find that your reach just dwindles down.
And what you want to do is to promote your products or service just 10% of the time. So, when you're creating 10 pieces of content, 9 should be about education and helping, and only 1 should be about promoting your products and services.
And typically, when we do that one that's promoting our product or service, we still educate, but at the same time, we promote.
So, for example, we are giving all these tips about marketing. We could say "Hey if you're struggling and you need additional help, you can check out our agency Serendipity Marketing."
It's true, we are promoting it, but at the same time, we are blending it in.
For instance, we typically do that throughout the end, or wherever it makes sense within our content, but that should help you, because when you do that smooth transition, we found that it converts much better.
7. Email automation
The seventh tip we have for you is to build an email list and leverage automation. So, you can use tools like Hello Bar, to build an email list. It's free.
It allows you to collect emails through sliders, exit popups, super effective.
We know you may not like them, but if someone's leaving your website, what do you have to lose? Over 90% of the people are probably never going to come back.
So, might as well have an exit pop up, that collects information, so you can get them to come back.
And if you're doing this, might as well leverage push notifications as well, because then through push notifications, through tools like subscribers, you can also do automation.
For example, for an ecommerce site, you can be like "Hey this product is almost sold out." Or “Get free shipping, click here to actually buy this product."
And you can do this based on what pages people are viewing on your site.
8. Funnels
The eighth tip we have for you to get digital marketing for free is to use funnels, instead of going straight to selling. You know, everyone is just like, "Sell, sell, sell."
Think about this; let's say you're in a relationship, or if you're not, your parents were in a relationship. You know and they had you, hence you're here.
Your parents probably didn't just meet each other and be like "Hey let's get married."
You probably would've never existed, and they would've run away from each other.
What's realistic is that they met each other, they liked each other, they went on a few dates, they got to know each other, and then eventually they went out to have coffee, or a restaurant.
Fast forward another six months, they may have moved in together. Keep fast forwarding. They may have met each other's parents and all their friends. And then after a few years, then they get married.
Think of that same concept, but on the internet.
Someone comes to your website, you're like "Marry me, marry me, give me your wallet. Spend, spend, spend."
That doesn't work as well as educating, getting to know people.
So, what we like doing is to create a ton of content like this article.
Then we create email sequences that keep sending messages out to you and educating at the same time.
From there, we then can sell you on products and services. Only after we are helping you out and educating you.
It's a great way to generate sales, versus just being like, "Buy, buy, buy."
In other words, you want to continue to add value, and don't just put selling first.
Put people first and help them out before you try to ask for anything. That works so much better.
If you need help with your digital marketing to grow your business in terms of visibility, engagement, and profit, contact us today and speak with one of our digital marketing experts to see how we can build the bridge between the point you’re standing at right now and your goals.
