Are you planning on starting a small business, or do you currently run a local retail shop that’s been open for some time?
Regardless of what your business specializes in, where you are, and how long you’ve been open, marketing is essential for any and all small businesses.
Small business owners have various backgrounds and experience, so there’s no need to feel discouraged if marketing isn’t part of your primary skill set. We’re here to help! Let’s start with the basics:
What Is Small Business Marketing?
Put simply, marketing is the promotion of your business. Marketing activities aim to raise awareness about your small business’ existence, share what you do (or offer), and why you do it.
At the end of the day, the hope is for this awareness to translate into more foot traffic. Once you’ve gotten new visitors into your retail store, the experience they have can turn them into loyal customers, and guarantee consistent sales.
While all of this may sound easy enough, it’s hard work! Pair minimal marketing experience with a small budget (if any budget at all), and you’re likely wondering how this can become your reality.
Lucky for you, there are hundreds of new marketing tools out there designed to help retailers like you — and many of them are free. We’re going to share 17 free marketing resources for small businesses you need to be tapping into immediately.
One of the best small business resources out there is social media — each platform is a free space for you to raise brand awareness. Creating your profiles is step one. No budget necessary!
Some of the social media platforms we recommend for small businesses are:
- Facebook — A great platform to post business updates on. Include business details like location, hours, and contact information on your profile. Create a nice profile and cover photo, and post to your feed and stories consistently. Try going live and sharing new product information!
- Instagram — An easy pairing with Facebook, as you can connect these platforms and publish your posts and stories in both places at once. (If you run ads in the future, they’re connected in this way, too!) Instagram Reels have also taken off, and like posts/stories, you can easily ensure these videos are visible on Facebook, too.
- YouTube — Into video content? YouTube can be a fantastic place to host your informational videos. If you’re an expert in your industry, consider posting educational videos to your channel to back up your small business and gain a following. You can go live here and post YouTube Shorts, too.
- Threads — This platform is essentially Instagram’s spin on Twitter, providing a place for quick and snappy updates. It takes more time and energy to see success here as a small business, so we only recommend using Threads if you have enough time to dedicate to it. If you’re witty and love to stay on top of trends, this may be where you shine!
- TikTok — This platform has really taken off in recent years — so if your hope is to go viral, your small business should be on TikTok. This is another one that requires time and energy to stay on top of trends. Create both short and long videos to catch viewers’ attention, and hopefully, draw new customers to your small business. It’s possible to see success on this platform if you’re up for posting videos consistently.
These are just some of the social media platforms we recommend, but there are many others that you can get started on for free. Do some research to figure out where you want your small business to be present and how each platform will support your marketing efforts. You don’t have to have an account for everything, but rather, give the profiles you do have enough attention so they can succeed.
So you need to post consistently, and you need what you’re posting to look good. Don’t stress! Next, we’re going to share some free marketing resources to help with just that.
Canva
Canva has made graphic design accessible to anyone and everyone. With a free account, you can create a profile photo and cover image for your social media profiles. And because you don’t want to send out text-only posts, you can create social media graphics in all shapes and sizes.
Canva even offers free templates, sizing, and elements if you’re unsure where to begin. Download your designs and take them right to your social media feed or stories.
Buffer
Now you’ve created your social media profiles and you have a way to spin up profile and post designs — but posting to each platform daily takes a lot of time. And as a small business owner, your time can be limited.
Buffer is another free resource that allows you to schedule out social media posts in advance. This means that, instead of popping into each platform to post videos, stories, and other updates, you can map out your content days, weeks, or months ahead.
Email Marketing Resources
Hopefully you’ve set up a customer loyalty program for your small business — but if not, we recommend you start here. (Your POS solution should make this easy to set up!)
A customer loyalty program allows you to collect customer information (like email addresses!), which you can use to get in touch later on.
Once you have customer emails, you’ll need a streamlined way to reach out and track which recipients are opening your messages. That’s where Mailchimp comes in.
Mailchimp is an email marketing platform that offers a free tier to help small businesses like yours get started. Import customer email addresses and send your loyalty program members new product alerts, special deals and promotions, event invitations, and more.
Small Business Awareness Resources
When it comes to raising awareness, free marketing resources for small businesses don’t stop at social media and email! Let’s dive into additional resources that can help you get more eyes on your retail shop.
Google My Business
If you want to ensure your small business gets discovered by locals, start with a Google My Business listing.
A Google My Business listing is free, and it makes a significant impact on local SEO (search engine optimization). If someone searches “hardware store near me,” for example, you want your small business’ listing to pop up.
Aside from helping your retail shop gain awareness, your GMB listing contains customer reviews and important store information like address, phone number, hours, parking details, and more. Be sure to add high-quality photos to your Google My Business listing, and encourage your customers to leave you a review (which is a good opportunity to provide a discount to those who do!).
The better your Google My Business listing looks, the more likely a new visitor will give your shop a visit.
Eventbrite
Another fantastic way to market and raise awareness of your small business is by hosting an event. And luckily, tools like Eventbrite provide the ability to list your event for free.
If you’re a garden center, perhaps you can try hosting a gardening 101 class for a small fee. Clothing shops and boutiques commonly host pop-up shops, too, featuring other small businesses in their storefronts.
The opportunities are endless!
Pro Tip: List your events in more than one place. Eventbrite is a great place to host your “main” event because you can sell tickets on this platform if you’re charging a reservation fee. But you can also list events on Facebook for free, and include the link to your Eventbrite listing for tickets.
HARO
HARO, or Help a Reporter Out, is a free marketing resource that can help you get media coverage.
By signing up, you’ll receive source requests to your email a few times per day. If you see a request that is relevant to your small business, you can reply and pitch your story to journalists. Then, if a journalist is interested in the information you’ve provided, they’ll reach out — and (hopefully) cover your small business in their next story.
Getting media attention is a great way to gain brand awareness for your small business, so this resource could be worth a shot!
Educational Marketing Resources
Are you hoping to learn more about a specific area of marketing? If you’re looking to sharpen your skills before getting started, there are many free marketing resources for small business education, too!
HubSpot Academy
HubSpot is trusted by many businesses nationwide, and luckily, they provide several free resources that can help you learn new marketing skills.
HubSpot Academy hosts hundreds of courses covering all areas of marketing, from content creation to advertising to e-commerce. Even if you’re confident in one or multiple areas of marketing, trying out a course could help you learn something new.
Grow With Google
Google has resources for almost anything you can imagine. Guides, courses, and live events are all available for free via Grow with Google, and they’re frequently changing and being updated.
Gain new marketing tips on social media promotion, expanding online, growing your small business, and more by exploring their full library of content.
LinkedIn and Facebook Groups
If you’re on Facebook or LinkedIn, you can join marketing groups! Even if you don’t have much to offer at first, there’s a lot you can learn by being a member of social media groups.
Interact with other group members and ask questions. You may find other people who are trying to market their small business, too, and are facing the same roadblocks as you.
Establishing a community of small business owners you can brainstorm with is an excellent (and free!) way to gain marketing knowledge. There are people of all backgrounds trying to launch and grow their small businesses, and you may find some solid connections.
Reddit and Quora
Last, but certainly not least, those small business marketers who aren’t active on Facebook or LinkedIn groups may take to Reddit or Quora to engage in conversation about their endeavors.
If you have a specific question you want advice on, you can search through marketing channels to see if someone has asked it before and what responses they got. Or if you’re in a more unique situation, consider posting your question on either site to see what kind of help you get.
Like Facebook and LinkedIn, it’s helpful to engage with others on Reddit and Quora, too — and there’s a chance you gain some small business connections out of these free marketing resources.
Try These 17 Free Marketing Resources for Small Businesses
We covered a lot of free marketing resources for small businesses, and hopefully they help you feel more at ease on your journey. You don’t need a degree in marketing or a massive budget to see success in marketing your business!
Aside from courses and tools you can access online, your point of sale (POS) system plays a major role in marketing your small business, too. The right solution will make it easy to obtain and track customer information, and reach out to them via SMS messages and emails.
Is this another area you think your small business will need to level up? Comcash has all of the retail point of sale features businesses like yours need — and none of the extras you don’t.
Take Comcash for a spin by scheduling a live software demo, or build your dream POS solution for a free quote!