Perhaps one of the best things about the digital world we live in is that you don’t have to spend a fortune to advertise your business! It use to be that small businesses were left out of the competitive (and expensive) world of advertising on TV, Radio- even newspapers because of small budgets. Now, there are so many great ways you can advertise your business without breaking the bank. All that’s required is a little hard work and dedication. In fact, here are five ways you can market your lash business for FREE…
1. Social Media. This one is obvious and probably not new information to you but it’s essential. Remember, it’s not as easy as just setting up accounts and posting whenever you feel like it. Quality content is planned content. We suggest creating a weekly social media calendar so you know what content to post, when, why and what you’re going to say. For now, popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are free with the option to spend money on paid content. If you have a few dollars a month to spend on advertising, spend them on Facebook Advertising. I just ran an ad campaign that yielded results of 1 cent spent per engagement. I know 1 penny isn’t “free” but I’d say it’s pretty darn close….
2. Email Marketing. As you are building your client list, don’t forget to grab their emails so you can reach them in their inboxes. Our favorite email marketing program is MailChimp for two reasons, 1. It’s integrated with Facebook so you can do a lot of cool things with advertising and importing your contacts and 2. It’s FREE! MailChimp offers a “Forever Free” plan that allows you to use their standard email services for free up to 2,000 subscribers. If you’re list grows beyond 2,000 subscribers you’ll have to upgrade to a paid plan but that’s a great problem to have!
3. Canva. Have you heard of canva.com? It’s a great way to create visual content for your business. They have a variety of layouts specifically formatted for social media, flyers, emails, websites etc. Canva accounts are free and give you the ability to layer photos, graphics and text without the help of a graphic designer. It’s a very user-friendly program with good customer support should you have any questions.
4. Pexels/Unsplash. These two sites are free stock photo sites you can use to create content. Any photo you download falls under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. This means the pictures are completely free to be used for any legal purpose so you can use them to market your business without worrying about copyright issues.
5. Hootsuite. This is an amazing social media management program that you can use to plan your content. The Hootsuite Free Plan allows you to manage 3 social profiles from their dashboard so you can line up your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts for the week at one time! Use Hootsuite to plan and schedule your content so you don’t have to worry about posting every day.