5 Free Publicity Ideas that Will Attract Customers to Your Business

Beyond tackling advertising and developing a marketing strategy, figuring out how to generate publicity for your small business is highly crucial. 

You must determine how to reach your intended audience. If they have never heard of you, how do they know they want to use your service or product?

Managing interactions between the public and an organisation to foster a favourable perception is known as public relations. The end outcome of those conversations is publicity. For free publicity, you don’t need to have a PR budget.

There are numerous options for free publicity that your small business can take advantage of.

 Here are some free ways to drive publicity for your business and attract customers. 

RELATED:

4 Dumb Reasons People Give for Starting a Business

1. Start a word-of-mouth or referral programme

It’s simpler to allow your current customers to promote your business. In addition to being effective, word-of-mouth advertising increases conversion rates by four times when friends and family recommend a product or service.

Your customers can also assist you in promoting your company without paying any money by sharing, liking, and commenting on your social media posts. 

By requesting this favour from your customers, you can take advantage of your existing relationships with them and reward them with discounts or first access to new products.

To be successful with this free publicity method, you must wow your consumers to the point where they want to tell their network about you. 

This could entail supplying high-quality goods and services, outbidding rivals on price, and offering prompt and friendly customer service.

2. Gather and display recommendation

Use the recommendations of your current customers in your publicity activities to establish your reputation further. Include them in every possible client contact point you have, such as your online store, Google Business page, and directory listings.

You could also use QR codes, which customers could scan with their phones before opening a review platform.

To take things a step further, if you include something from your menu or make a reference to the neighborhood in the actual reviews, that will also assist with Google Maps optimisation, with people finding you online, and with the entire discovery process.

3. Give products to creators and influencers

Small business owners may now connect with their target market through social media, regardless of who they are, what they are interested in, or where they live. However, changes in algorithms are making it more challenging to interact with people. Brands are being forced into a pay-to-play model by social media platforms.

Donate free products to creatives to attract their attention. Even if you have to pay to make the product you ship, the free exposure may not even cost you anything, especially if they are impressed with you, your brand, or your product.

4. Run a contest or giveaway

Almost everyone loves free gifts. According to research, Instagram accounts that regularly provide giveaways expand 70% faster, get 3.5 times as many likes, and get 64 times more comments than those that don’t.

Enter contests as a component of your publicity campaign. Ask customers to do an activity using your product, post the video to social media, and include your brand’s hashtag. You’ll receive a ton of user-generated content to reuse for free brand promotion.

5. Enter contests or awards

Awards help your small business gain credibility in a big way. If you win, they also give you free PR.

Include your most spectacular achievements in your submission, such as satisfied client testimonials, prior honors you have received, and recommendations from professionals in the field. 

The submissions that capture the most attention will stand out from the others.

You can use the prize or contest as free PR even if you don’t win. Show off your selection as a finalist or runner-up on your website to entice customers to make a purchase.

NEXT:

5 Business Lessons from African Billionaire Nicholas Oppenheimer