Independent Small Business Marketing Without A Budget

Marketing is a crucial part of any business. Without marketing no matter how great the product is, it cannot survive. Businesses with a bunch of customers must have done marketing in form of word-of-mouth or a simple chat. When a business is built with enormous money or with a fan base, it’s a lot easier to acquire a new audience. Businesses that are bootstrapped, and run by solo entrepreneurs usually struggle to push their products in a wide range. From our introduction post, it should be pretty evident that we were on a mission to build a system for managing the marketing side of products. Although there are a plethora of tools available on the internet for similar purposes, our goal is to build a tool to manage more than one project developed by indie hackers and small businesses who struggle to manage their product’s market. After quite a research we have listed a few options that could help you market your software at a very minimal or no budget.

1. SEO

Search Engine Marketing (SEO) should be the primary source of marketing a product if you are without a budget. Many small businesses underestimate the power of SEO. It starts with tweaking the product website with the right keywords and other functionalities so that you get the best impression of the project. Some websites, for example, clearly demonstrate the product’s features in a list and also with a detailed description of each and every functionality. Though it could look a bit elaborate, it could boost your traffic through search engines. Invest quite a time in designing your product’s website with a sharp eye. Look at the product competitor’s website. See what, how and why they emphasise certain features or content. This should really be a starting point for getting a product out there.

2. Joining forums

Forums are a great way to share your product. They help you understand and brainstorm more about the features and things one builds. Moreover, if you are keen on getting a few customers onboard, they are the way to go forward. There are lots of communities for SAAS products. As HelloKea is a SAAS product, I would like to share some online forums and communities in which I would personally share and get feedback. All these are generally a free way to promote SAAS products and get initial customers.

1. Reddit - A Subreddit for discussions on software as a service and other small business online forum
2. SAAStr - Community for sharing ideas and views about startups and SAAS product
3. Indiehackers - A Community for indiehackers. Online community for small and indie products
4. Roast My Startup - Another online Reddit sub-forum for discussing and commenting on your product.

There are also a few directories where you could post more about your product.

5. Robingood - Post your startup or product on these websites to get discovered.
6. Startup Videos - Videos are a clear way to share knowledge on services
7. Youtube - Post more online videos on documentation and new features
8. Startup Collections - A directory on a list of SAAS products

Publishing content could really help people discover and understand products. And, they are also a way for creating more backlinks which internally is SEO.

3. Blogging with excellent content

One of the most effective ways of marketing is creating exceptional essays and posts that intrigue end users. Generally creating a user base through writing interesting posts could naturally convert to a strong user/fan base. Most businesses which lack resources for producing content use a technique called evergreen content. These are posts which could stand in test of time and has a very minor change required. A good example is writing a classic post on a science article. These contents rarely change and could help boost traffic for a long period of time.

4. Social Media

Social media marketing is popular for quite some time. They are the easiest ways for mingling with users and communities in general. Sharing useful related content and engaging with users would help to build not just a loyal follower count but also a loyal customer base. In our introduction post, we did mention building a tool for social communication and we are working hard. Try engaging with all users on different social media platforms. At times, these platforms behave more like helpdesk/support systems in scenarios where a query needs to be addressed quickly.

5. Email Newsletter

Newsletters are classic in providing updates on things that are happening in general with products, companies, and features. These are the ways to help you understand your customer base better. People who are shy on social media usually use this for providing feedback by replying to emails. And, this happened to us lots of times. Regularly sending emails to a bunch of people with interesting content related to the product could help build a faithful base. There are different types of newsletters one can use to promote content. Two types are more than enough for starters. First and foremost is the newsletter for providing updates. The other one is building a newsletter on product tips. The second one is more like tutorials. Whenever new subscribers opt for this newsletter, they receive emails from the start rather than the latest ones.

6. Focus on niche markets - initially

When someone starts a business, they typically have a grand vision for their business. In most cases, it could be expensive to market and capture all the dreams. In scenarios like that it could be better to stick to the main market in which one believes their product could be more successful. This would leverage the effort to push something to market. Capturing the first few customers is always a bit of an issue for more startups. Most small businesses fail due to a reliable customer base. Join online forums and communities on a niche market to test and push your product. They could be beneficial in tuning the product for a wider audience. Reddit and Facebook groups are a way to promote business without a hassle.

We are working so hard to make the product work for indie hackers and small businesses. Our first focus is to build a product with proper functionality. We did build a changelog functionality first to start off. After a few responses from our users, we started focusing on the helpdesk email system. We will be writing more on this in our future posts. As I am the only software developer to work on the system, things will be a bit slower but steadier. Once we have a basic version ready, we are going to focus more on the above-listed points to get a sustainable user base from marketing.