Small Biz Marketing For $100 a Month

I was going to title this post “Small Biz Marketing for People with No Budget.” Then I realized that there is a very big difference between zero and $100 for many people. (If you have NO budget, start commenting on blogs like a crazy person and get active on Twitter and Facebook. Or sell your Xbox and follow the rules below.)

I get a lot of questions about low budget marketing ideas. People are like, “I have $100 a month. How the hell can I get people to my site?” (It’s always $100 for some reason.) Here’s my answer:

Go to a conference.

Take the $100 a month you would’ve spent on random banner ads over the course of a year and go to a conference. You can do South by Southwest for that, and you can do SOBCon for half if you’re careful with where you stay and how you get there.

Conferences are just like those lame ass Small Business Association meet and greets except the booze is better and they’re not so sleazy. People are away from their families and other responsibilities, so their inhibitions are lowered. They’re more amenable to meeting new people and hearing what they have to say. They’re conducive to actually getting the same type of people in the same room and talking.

If one more person complains to me about how expensive conferences are, I’m going to do something drastic. If you make one decent connection at a conference — and I’m not talking Arianna Huffington here, I’m talking me or Michael or Clay — you will make more money in a month than banner ads will get you in a year. And if you do it right, you’ll meet ten. Do the math, people.

If you’re not a people person, fake it or learn. Read a book on self esteem or loving yourself or whatever. Go hang out in the self-help section of your nearest big box bookstore. Talk to the Havinator for a cyber-snuggle or take the course. Call me and have me kick your ass. Whatever. Just channel all the balls you’ve got to go to a conference, paste on a happy face and meet some real, live humans.

Other $100 Marketing Ideas

Hire a VA.

Get them to rock the shit out of your Twitter or Facebook profile. Give them a starter list of people to follow people or add as friends or whatever the latest social networking jargon is, then spend 20 minutes a day finding new people. I hated Facebook until one of my favorite authors in the universe added me as a friend, totally out of the blue. I don’t hate it anymore. (You can get me here on Twitter or here on Facebook.)

Teach something.

Head down to your local library, book a room for fifty bucks, and buy a box of donuts. Teach something. Ideally this “something” would be at least peripherally relevant to what you do for a living. Repeat each month.

Learn something.

You know how many friends I made from the home office asskickery yesterday? A bunch. Not only is my house cleaner, but now I know people. Knowing people is useful. If one of those people tells one of THEIR people that I am awesome, I will make money. That course in particular cost me $46. I will have made my money back from that by tomorrow. Plus I’ve got a cleaner house.

Sponsor something.

Sponsor a contest. Give away something cool. This must be repeated, though, because you won’t really get any traffic the first time you do it. The most important takeaway for the sponsoring thing is that it MUST BE COOL. (Rules here are similar to the rules for cool swag.) Also, try to sponsor something where the audience is similar to your own, but not so similar that the holder of the contest competes with your offering. IttyBiz example: For me, Problogger yes, Duct Tape Marketing no.

As with any marketing initiative, any of the foregoing MUST BE REPEATED. Do not quit after two months (or one conference). One push does not make you internet famous. You have to be there, over and over. Sooner or later, everyone eventually says, “Jesus, I keep seeing this guy. I should go check it out.” If it’s good enough for Leo Babauta, it’s good enough for you.

By Naomi Dunford