So, you did some research, found a product or service to sell, and officially registered your company. Awesome! However, this alone is not enough to start acquiring customers and generating revenue. You have to get out there and tell people about it. For this reason, we have compiled the ultimate 30 ways to promote your business today.
Ready? Without further ado, let’s start:
1. Create a website
While creating a website is the first obvious step for many businesses, you would be surprised how many small companies are still not taking advantage of the opportunities it provides.
A website is basically your virtual office on the Internet, a digital representation of what your brand is about and the services it offers. It is an absolute must if you are serious about growing your business in the long run.
You don’t have to spend a fortune on building your website. All you need is an affordable hosting (Bluehost can be a good solution starting from $2.95/mo), and a website theme. I find most of my themes on ThemeForrest, with prices ranging from as low as $19 up to $69 for the most premium ones.
You can also hire a Digital Marketing agency – nowadays, there are some really affordable options for web development.
2. Set up your Google Business profile
As soon as your website is up and running, the next important step that you will have to do in order to promote your business and gain visibility is to set up your Google Business profile.
It is completely free to set up and verify, and it allows your brand to show up on places such as:
- Google Maps results;
- The local section of Google Search results;
- The right-side Knowledge Panel of search results.
You can also leverage Google Business profile to show up for paid advertisement. For example, if somebody is looking for restaurants in New York, your restaurant has the perfect opportunity to capture local traffic both through paid ads and organic:
3. Drive traffic through SEO
The next awesome way to promote your business and drive consistent traffic to your website is by leveraging the power of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
SEO is a great way to position your website in front of your competitors on Google’s search results, and capture thousands of monthly searches related to your business. If you don’t know where to start from, you can check out my article The Simple Introduction to SEO for Beginners.
Summed up, the most powerful SEO tactics include:
- The creation of long-form, high-quality content for your blog (+2000 words per article);
- The strategic placement of keywords related to your business and industry across your pages;
- Maintaining a secure and fast-loading website (it should load in less than 3 seconds!);
- The generation of backlinks to establish your site as an authoritative and trustworthy source;
4. Create a mobile app
You might be thinking: creating an app for my business requires thousands of dollars and months of lengthy app development! Yes…and no.
While it’s true that building a complex native app can cost up to $100 000, there are much faster and affordable solutions if your goal is to promote your business and cater to your mobile audience. In fact, you can create an app for less than $50 per month and without any coding with app builders such as:
Considering the fact that more than 50% of all web traffic now comes from mobile (source: Google), establishing a mobile presence and delivering a smooth mobile experience should be a must for every business.
5. Promote your business locally
While Digital Marketing is slowly taking over traditional Marketing, this doesn’t mean that people are no longer impacted by what’s happening in the physical world. On the contrary – as they are saturated with digital ads from every corner of the Internet, they might even pay more attention than before.
So, don’t underestimate the power of:
- Flyers, especially if you have a local shop or a restaurant;
- Useful merchandising that people will use on a daily basis, such as a pen or a USB;
- Business cards for you and your employees to keep things professional;
- And other promotional materials such as catalogues, booklets, etc.
To combine the physical world with the digital world, make sure to include a QR code so that people can go directly to your website. You can easily generate one with a free QR code generator.
6. Create a referral program
What’s better than promoting your business yourself? Letting somebody else do it for you…for free! Referral programs are an awesome way to acquire more customers through your existing ones by offering incentives to both of them for spreading the word.
For example, Dropbox managed to achieve a 3900% growth in 15 months by offering up to 16 GB of free space to users who invited their friends to try out the tool.
Another great example is Siteground, which offered 3 months free of hosting for users who recommended them to other potential customers.
Of course, your referral program might be different from the ones of other companies. It is up to you decide what reward or incentive to give – just make sure that it’s worth it!
7. Organize events
Next on our list of strategies to promote your business is to organize events, conferences or workshops. This is a great way to gain visibility for your business because it provides valuable content to your audience. And it will be even more attractive if the access to your event is free.
Select a trending topic within your industry and make sure to deliver valuable insights that people will remember. A low-cost alternative to face-to-face events is to organize webinars, which are online seminars that people can join from anywhere. This also means that more people will be able to attend compared to a face-to-face event.
8. Get online with LinkedIn Live
Speaking of webinars, you can easily promote your business with LinkedIn Live events. They allow you to host a live webinar directly on LinkedIn, and engage with your audience from the comfort of your own home (or office, of course).
You can learn everything about them in my article 5 Powerful Steps to Promoting LinkedIn Live Events in 2022.
9. Have a blog on your website
Undoubtedly, one of the best ways to promote your business and drive traffic to your website is to have a blog. Even in 2022, many companies still underestimate the power of valuable content, which is a huge error that you should avoid at all costs.
If you don’t have time to write your content, you can always hire a person or company to outsource your content writing needs.
Some benefits of writing consistently in a blog include:
- Better search rankings;
- High-quality traffic;
- Generation of brand awareness;
- Higher domain authority;
- Improved user experience;
And more! You can check the full list of benefits in this article.
10. Write guest posts
On top of having and maintaining your own blog, another strategy to promote your business is to write guest posts for others. This means identifying brands and websites whose audience might be valuable for your company, and reaching out to them to offer a guest post in exchange for a backlink on their site.
This strategy is excellent for your off-site SEO as it helps you establish your domain authority and trustworthiness on the Internet. It also gets your brand in front of new audiences that could potentially convert into paying customers.
11. Answer questions on Quora
Another excellent, low-cost tactic to promote your business and drive traffic to your website is by answering questions on Quora. You can identify topics and questions that are related to your industry, and provide a detailed and comprehensive answer to them with a link to your website.
12. Promote your business through directories
Many people often visit online directories to search for businesses that satisfy their specific needs. Directories are typically large websites with a lot of traffic and high domain authority that can significantly boost your online presence.
So, make sure that you create and/or update your listings on major directories such as:
- Yelp
- Glassdoor
- Bing
- Foursquare
Because smaller directories typically pull out data from the bigger ones, there is a high chance that you will automatically end up there as well. Additionally, make sure that you also create listings on any directories within your niche.
For example, if you are a SaaS company, you may want to show up on platforms such as Capterra, TrustPilot, Software Advice, Gartner and others.
13. Run Google Ads
Of course, one of the most popular and effective ways to promote your business is through Google Ads. The reason why search ads are so effective is because they enable you to reach your audience with keywords in the exact moment that they are looking for a product or service like yours.
Creating an account on Google Ads is completely free to make, and you can spend as much as you like. You can do it yourself, or hire a Digital Marketing agency to help you out.
14. Post on social media regularly
You can also promote your business and drive organic traffic by posting regularly on social media channels. If you haven’t done this yet, go ahead and create social accounts for your company on the channels that have the biggest potential for your industry.
Depending on your business niche, you might have to do some research to identify the best channels for you. For some companies, it could be Facebook and/or Instagram, for others – Twitter or LinkedIn, and so on.
Pro tip: don’t try to have presence on all social channels at the same time. It will consume a lot of resources, dilute your attention, and your efforts might end up being counter-productive. For a starter, select 2-3 channels, and start being really consistent with them.
15. Organize giveaways and social media contests
As we already mentioned, people love free things! For this reason, organizing giveaways and social media contests in which people can easily participate for a reward are always very effective if you want to promote your business.
For example, you can challenge them to post a specific photo with your special hashtag, such as a photo of their decorated Christmas tree. The user with the most beautiful Christmas tree who used your hashtag may get a custom swag box for free! Here are some awesome examples of social media contest ideas.
16. Start a YouTube channel
It may sound like a cliché, but content truly is king in the digital era – Bill Gates said it back in 1996, and it is still true to this day. Apart from SEO and blog content, you can also start creating video content on YouTube as a way to promote your business.
If you are still not sure why, here are some mind-blowing statistics from Explain Ninja:
- 85% of businesses use video as a marketing tool and 59% of non-video marketers expect to start leveraging it in 2021.
- 66% of people said they’d prefer to watch a short video to learn about a product or service.
- 78% of users got more traffic to their website after using videos.
- 68% of people will watch a full video if it’s a minute long or less.
You don’t have to spend a fortune to create videos. You can use tools like Canva (affiliate link) and Envato Elements to get millions of video and graphic resources for less than 15$ per month.
Disclaimer: Canva is an affiliate link. This means that I will earn a small commission if you decide to purchase their Pro Plan after visiting the website from this link. Of course, no purchase is obligatory, and I absolutely love Canva, so I would recommend them anyway. 🙂
17. Start prospecting on LinkedIn
Another way in which you can promote your business is by prospecting on LinkedIn. What does this mean?
Basically, it means that you identify potential customers (prospects) within your LinkedIn network, and reach out to them to let them know more about your business.
You can start by getting in touch with your connections to let them know about your product or service – and move your way up by expanding your network with more connections that could be interested in it. Just don’t go overboard with direct messages as it will be labelled as spamming.
Additionally, it is important to make sure that you have previously interacted with these connections – liking and commenting on their posts, discussing trends with them, etc. Reaching out to directly sell them something is a no-no and most people won’t even bother responding to your message.
18. Run ads on LinkedIn
If you want to skip the step of cold-calling potential customers, you can run Message ads on LinkedIn instead. Message ads are delivered directly into the inbox of your audience, and they are an especially good tool for B2B businesses.
Of course, Message ads are not the only format that you can leverage on LinkedIn. Here is a summary of all 8 formats:
| Ad format | Description |
| Single image ad | Also known as Sponsored Content, they consist of a LinkedIn ad copy and a single image. |
| Carousel image ad | A collection of at least 2 image cards that follow one after another in a visual way. |
| Video ad | Companies can also go for a video format to generate more brand awareness. |
| Text ad | Text-based ads that can show up in the right column of your feed, or on top of the page. |
| Spotlight ad | Personalized ads that combine users’ profile data to draw their attention. |
| Message ad | Message ads allow companies to send messages right into the user’s inbox. |
| Conversation ad | Conversation ads allow you to create chatbot-like conversations with your audience. |
| Event ad | Event ads give you the opportunity to promote your LinkedIn live events. |
Learn everything about LinkedIn ad formats and how to use them in this article.
19. Create beautiful infographics
Did you know that infographics are one of the most shared pieces of content on social media? Great infographics are often shared on third-party websites as well, which gives you an excellent opportunity to generate more backlinks and promote your business.
In fact, according to Visme, 49% of content creators rate visual content as “very important” to their content Marketing strategy.
And the good part is, awesome infographics don’t have to be expensive at all. You can easily create them with Canva’s free and pro templates (affiliate link).
20. Build a great landing page
Having a great landing page is a must-have for any company that wants to drive more conversions and highlight the features of their product or service. You can use tools such as Elementor, Mailchimp and LeadPages to create a landing page for your product or service.
Once created, you can use this landing page to promote your business across paid and organic channels and capture the upcoming traffic. But before doing that, make sure that you have successfully configured Google Analytics and any other relevant tools that will allow you to measure conversions.
After all, you can’t know if a strategy is effective without measuring the conversions from it.
21. Design and sell NFTs
A rather unconventional way to promote your business, but one that has been increasingly growing in popularity over the last few months, are NFTs. NFTs, short from non-fungible tokens, are a “unique and non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a digital ledger”.
Put simply, an NFT is a piece of digital art – like a painting or a portrait. However, what’s different about them is that they use blockchain technology to provide a public proof of ownership – everybody knows who is the original owner of the NFT.
The point is, many businesses have already started making use of this trend, designing and selling their own NFTs as a way to earn extra revenue and promote their brand.
You can explore platforms such as Rarible and OpenSea for more information.
22. Write an eBook
Next on our list of awesome ways to promote your business is to write an eBook. There a lot of things that you can do with eBooks to boost your online presence, such as:
- Give them as a gift for people who fill out a form on your website;
- Use their content as a base for social media posts;
- Sell them for extra revenue;
- Give them as gifts to your existing customers to enhance customer loyalty;
Pro tip: I highly recommend giving out the eBook as a piece of valuable content in exchange for a user subscription or registration. Selling it wouldn’t be that professional, unless selling this kinds of products is a part of your business model. However, if you decide to sell on Amazon, make sure to have the eBook in kindle format.
23. Send out a press release
Another strategy to promote your business is to send out a press release about the launch of your company or something important that’s happening around it. For example, a new feature, new product, or an exciting collaboration.
Many journalists are pressured by deadlines to get new content out as soon as possible, and you can use this knowledge to your advantage. However, to have a better chance of getting your story published, make sure to send out a good PR kit:
- A summary guide providing more information about your company;
- The press release that you want to be published;
- Design elements, such as your logo and corporate colors;
- Demos or walkthrough videos;
- Photos and bios of the founders;
24. Try out Guerrilla Marketing
If you want to get more creative with the different strategies to promote your business, you can also try out Guerrilla Marketing.
This Marketing tactic uses surprise and/or unconventional interactions to attract the attention towards a product or service. Typically, companies use objects from the real world to try and blend them with their advertising strategy. Here is a brilliant example from McDonalds:
You can check more examples here.
25. Include a link in your email signature
And of course, don’t forget to implement this quick tactic to promote your business in a subtle but effective way – including a link to your website in your email signature. Pro tip: make sure to include a banner to make it more visual.
26. Create a video intro about your business
As we mentioned previously, video content is an excellent way to grab the attention of your audience – and keep it. According to a study conducted by Buffer, which analyzed over 777 million Facebook posts, videos achieve 59% more engagement than other post types.
Having said this, you can create an introductory video that tells people more about your company and what you offer. It is an excellent way to promote your business as people tend to remember brands more if they are able to visualize their brand identity. So, instead of saying it – show it!
Again, you don’t have to spend a fortune on complex videos with real actors. There are platforms like Canva and Envato Elements that give you all the tools that you need to create an awesome video, from millions of stock videos and images to animations and templates.
27. Leverage the power of Story
The Story format has become increasingly popular over the last few years, and it is a great way to promote your business and gain more visibility. If your Instagram account doesn’t allow to swipe up and take users to the link, you can always put it in your bio instead.
28. Start building your email list
In order to promote your business successfully, you really need to start building your email list from day 1. A lot of companies make the error of starting this step very late, missing out on building a huge organic audience that they can impact later.
For this reason, it is important to make sure that you have at least one simple email sign up form on your website. This way, you will not only get the basic consensual data of your potential customers, but you will also gather valuable insights on their profile and behavior so you can better refine your Email campaigns.
29. Ask for reviews
Amazon became one of the most successful organizations in the world because of their reviews system. While many companies are afraid to open to reviews because of the negative ones, you should not underestimate this as a powerful tool to promote your business.
Don’t be afraid to ask and encourage your customers to leave you reviews. The positive ones are great, but in fact the negative reviews are the ones that will give you valuable information on how to improve. The companies that truly want to grow should be paying very close attention to this instead of ignoring it.
30. Promote your business by offering something for free
I said it once, and I will say it again – people LOVE free things! And they will be much more open to learn about and interact with your business if their time is “paid for” with an incentive.
By offering something for free, I don’t mean going broke sending actual physical gifts for everyone. It can be anything – a free demo, a free consultation, a free eBook, whitepaper or another digital resource, etc.
Of course, if you are selling tangible products, it can be something small. For example, if you are selling pastry and chocolates, it can be a mini version of your most popular product so that people can get a taste of it.
If you have a restaurant, it could be a free appetizer or tapas to “tease” people into ordering a full portion of your tasty dishes.
And this was all from me for today! I hope you enjoyed my article on the best ways to promote your business, and I hope I will see you in the next one!
