You do not have to set the world on fire with your marketing plan in the very early stages of your business. As a college graduate, you are not expected to have a lot of money. Until you are fully employed, you probably shouldn’t set up a business. However, if you have set up a business, you will need a series of ways to promote your services and products without it costing you any money. The methods listed below are all cheap and free ways of running and marketing your business.

Spread The Word Like Seeds In The Wind

Tell your college friends about your business and/or your products or services. Think about a plant that is loaded with flying seeds. As soon as the right gust of wind comes along, the seeds are drawn into the air and fly in all different directions. Spreading the word with your college chums will have the same effect as a gust of wind.

Your college friends are and were in the same location. They were all in college, just like the seeds that are nestled together in their plant sack. You spread the word within you student graduate community, and it has the same effect as the gust of wind. Your college friends all move away to different locations in the state and in the country, and with them, they take your marketing message.

If your college friends have already moved back to wherever it is that they live, then contact as many of them as you can over social media, email, messenger and via phone.

Pass The Word Along

The first method you should use for contacting your college friends is by email. It is the most passive and unintrusive way to contact people who may not want to be contacted. The next method is via social media private messenger services.

Remember that you need to keep it personal because it has a far bigger impact than social media posts. The next step is to send people SMS texts and to even call them to tell them about your products and services.

Try to sell to your friends, but concentrate more on them passing the word on themselves. Convincing one person to buy is fair enough, but you may have more luck if you convince that person to pass the word along and become a secondary sales agent (unpaid of course).

Asking A Favor From Your Friends

Having your friends pass the word along is a little more powerful than it first seems. When you contact your friends, you have to sell your product or service a little because your college friend needs to know how good your product/service is. However, getting them to “help” you has a lot of power.

When you contact them, convince them that you are actually seeking their help. That you are seeking their advice, and their expert people skills. Asking for help and asking for a favor is actually a compliment if you do it very rarely. You will be surprised how many people will respond to the idea of helping you if you make it clear that you “need” their help.

Find A Young Salesperson

Moving slightly away from the idea of asking your college friends for help, what about finding a young salesperson? Young people have a hard time making money, and some are willing to take any sort of job.

Offer to pay your young salesperson on commission. Make the commission very attractive because it takes a lot of incentive to go out there and sell. Paying on commission means that your salesperson can earn a lot of money if he or she is good at his or her job. It also means that your wages are paid by the sales your own staff bring in.

Older people will not typically search out or take a sales job on commission. Most of them have enough sense to stay away from such jobs because they are usually a big waste of time. However, younger people are a little more willing to try anything if it earns them some money.

Solicit Businesses Yourself

One of the most frustrating ways of finding more business is to solicit business yourself. This means making phone calls and sending emails to business and people who work within your target audience.

You do not always have to contact other businesses with sales offers. You can tell them that you are market testing something and ask if they will be willing to help or take part.

For example, if your new idea is for selling cookies made with goat’s butter, then you could contact a business yourself and ask if you can give away free samples at lunchtime. Ask if you may set up a small table in their canteen where the first cookie is free and the second cookie only costs 50 cents. If the business says yes, then take along leaflets, QR codes, and get people’s phone numbers and social media information. Make contacts within the company to make it easier for you to return, and maybe they will help you market your products too.

Conclusion – Notice How Personal The Marketing Strategies Were?

You didn’t just read a bunch of ways to burn through a marketing budget. The techniques and methods you just read about are all very cheap or free. The reason they are cheap/free is because they are all personal methods of making contacts and promoting your products/services. Keep it personal until you have a sustainable marketing budget.

Your aim is not to search out the best marketing and business strategies online. Your aim is to try a bunch of new and different things until you find one that works. The methods mentioned in this article are a good start, but they should only serve as inspiration for your marketing and business plans. Take the resources you have, and apply what you have learned from this article and you will be fine. Just remember that you shouldn’t spend money on marketing until you start making repeated sales. Spending money on marketing when you have no income is like putting gas in a car with no wheels.