Small businesses don’t need huge budgets to make a big marketing impact — in fact, there are plenty of powerful, free ways to reach new customers and build loyalty. From email marketing and PR, to collaborations with local businesses, the most effective strategies are rooted in storytelling, community and showing up where your audience already is.
Meet Jenn Donovan. Jenn is a successful author and podcaster, as well as an experienced keynote speaker. With over 15 years industry experience, Jenn really knows how to use marketing as an effective tool to help a business to grow.
Jenn fully understands the importance of building a strong community that aligns with a brand’s values. In this Q&A, she reveals her secrets to what drives a community to gain momentum organically, using marketing strategies effectively to make sincere connections with consumers – and keep them coming back.
Welcome Jenn!
The economy’s tough right now and everyone’s watching their dollars. Is it actually possible to market your business for free?
Yes absolutely. We’re living in a climate now where people with small businesses can’t afford to spend excess money on loads of marketing. I’m going to tell you some really great ways for people to add those bells and whistles of to their business strategy without paying a penny.
1. Email Marketing
So my number one is email marketing. And I have to say it’s one of my favourite marketing strategies. I feel that email marketing is so underrated. People always say to me that they hate getting marketing emails. But in reality, they don’t hate the emails, they just hate the content of some of them.
So I tell them, “What about all the emails that come into your inbox, and you open them straight away?” Maybe it’s because you love that brand or you love what the information is, it doesn’t matter. The takeaway is, emails are effective, you’ve just got to know how to speak to your to your audience.
My other tip with email marketing is to add in the details. What’s everyone’s favourite word? Their name. Writing directly to a customer gets their attention but also personalises the conversation from the start. People really notice those things.
2. Become ‘name’ in local media
So in this instance, we’re not talking about paying for an ad in a local newspaper. We’re looking at things that are free. If you watch morning television, experts come on and talk about different topics, such as flower arranging or Christmas recipes to cook. Well, those people are basically marketing their business for free, while at the same time filling airtime for a broadcaster.
These places need content. A morning TV show or podcast needs fresh content regularly, so why not put yourself forward? It’s the perfect win, win – you help them and in return they’re helping you. It’s a bit of a slower burn this strategy, because it’s not going to convert to financial success straight away, but it might convert into more followers or more inquiries or things like that. It’s about brand awareness and telling people about the story around your products and your brand.
There are directories online, many with information on categories of shows, who the host is, along with contact details. Just get in touch with your story and see if they have a slot hen has who the host is and some contact names or contact numbers or email address for them. So it’s not as hard as what you might think to find opportunities. See which journalists are writing about businesses like yours and reach out to them.
3. Collaborations and Partnerships
One of the best ways to grow your business is to find somebody else who has the same target audience as you (but isn’t your competition) and do a collaboration or a partnership with them. Think about who else is out there that already has the people in their community that would be interested in your business too.
You see it all the time with large established brands. It can be something as simple as going live on Instagram together, it doesn’t have to be something with a legal document attached to it. It’s a matter of finding someone with your target audience.
And don’t fall into the trap of worrying about “What do I have to offer them? They’ve got 10,000 followers on Instagram. Why would they want to deal with us?” But you need to look at what else you’ve got. You might have skills in other areas, or you might have useful connections for them. You might be really good at photography or videography from a previous job you once had. You never know what transferable skills another business might feel you can offer them. Just because they appear to be bigger and better doesn’t mean they don’t need a skill that you have.
4. Nurture your micro-Influencers
This is something I’ve spoken about for quite a few years. Prominent influencers may have 20,000 followers with a reputation to make a big impression, but who’s to know that in reality, maybe only 1 percent of their audience is actually active? Like so much of marketing, it’s all a bit smoke and mirrors.
So it’s good to also look at who your ‘micro’ influencers are. Who is that person that, when you post on social media, they’re always commenting or always sharing? Who is that person who works inside your business that could share regular posts to their own social media? These are valuable fans of your business that can get you in front of a different audience.
You’re looking for those ‘micro’ people, who are probably already your ‘hero’ clients or dedicated people within your business and activating that influencer within them to share your posts or talk about you in a space where you know your ideal client might be listening.
I think we just kind of forget that we have these influencers already working for us or in our family, we just need to activate them. We think about influencers as someone that we need to send free products to, in the hope they’ll showcase our brand to their massive audiences. But sometimes it’s about quality over quantity.
I would rather see a business have 500 followers, with 400 of those commenting and ‘liking’ posts regularly, than see a business with 50,000 followers where maybe only 20 regularly interacting with them.
5. Customer Reviews and Testimonials
Word of mouth is a wonderful marketing tool, it can spread like wildfire, and best of all it’s completely free. Sometimes, just speaking to someone who’s bought a product and had a good experience with it, can be enough to get them over the line and say “I will buy that product as well.”
So adding a testimonial on your website or on your product page could be the thing that makes people think, “Oh okay, someone has been here before. I trust that. I’m going to buy this product too.”
I think we can really underestimate the power of a positive testimonial, it’s another form of influencing to be honest. If you regularly get positive product reviews (if you sell products online), print them as testimonials on your website alongside product descriptions.
And my biggest piece of advice is that, when someone says that they love something they’ve purchased, or that they really enjoyed your service, don’t be afraid to ask them for as testimonial. If they’re too busy, ask them verbally and then write it up for them. Send them an email saying, “I know you’re super busy but some crazy marketing lady (that’d be me!) told me I needed more testimonials. I know you’re busy, so I wrote it based on our conversations. Feel free to change it. But I’d love to use it in my marketing.”
More often than not, people write back and say, “Yep, that’s fine, thank you.” As long as it sounds like them, and it’s something they actually said, I think people really do want to give you testimonials, it just doesn’t get to the top of their ‘To Do’ pile because everybody’s busy, just like you’re busy.
6. Get your profile out there
Google Business Profile (it used to be called Google My Business), is like a little piece of SEO gold that Google gives small business owners. If you don’t have one, then go to Google and type in ‘Google Business Profile’ and set it up.
Basically, what it’s doing is directing traffic to your website, offering photos, contact details and opening hours. You can put products in there, your social links, and a little bit about your business. When you’re Googling businesses, you’ll often see it in the right-hand side of a Google search. If you want to show up on a Google Map, that’s the way to do it.
If you already have one set up, but you haven’t looked at it in a while, log in and have a look at it to make sure it’s up to date. Add new photos, make sure the phone number, email address and opening hours (if applicable) are all correct. Especially heading into holiday periods when opening hours are subject to change.
Another similar one is Bing Places, which is on the search engine Bing, and it’s become really important to set this one up as well. It’s very similar to Google Business Profile and you can actually connect the two, so if you update one, it will update the other. The reason why Bing has started to become a buzzword is because a lot of AI programs which pull data from the Internet have deals with Bing .
7. Be SEO and smart caption savvy
SEO, or search engine optimisation, is basically optimising your search capabilities. In other words, optimising your website so that you come up on searches from your ideal client. Experts have estimated that you are around 9 times more likely to get traffic to your website from accurate SEO in a Google search, rather than via social media. We all spend so much time on engaging social media strategies and often forget to master some of the basics.
Optimise your website, making sure you know what you want to be found for, and making use of keywords. For example, if you’re based in Melbourne and you predominantly want to do business in Melbourne, you should be mentioning Melbourne in your website copy.
If getting your head around this is a bit of a minefield for you, try using AI tools, such as ChatGPT or Copilot for help. Feed in a blog you wrote and ask it something like, “What’s my target audience?” or “Can you give me SEO suggestions so this blog will show up for my target audience?”
AI tools can offer possible heading ideas you could use, as well as effective keywords. It’s not always right, but it can help to point you in the right direction. YouTube can also be helpful. Search for tutorials that focus on the platform you’ve built your website on and you’ll find lots of tips.
So really the big message is, have a look around, see what you’ve got available at your fingertips.
Jenn has many more tips to share, and you can catch up with her latest blogs and podcasts on her website.