An earlier post on free marketing ideas considered the ways that we could leverage our customers to create a host of marketing opportunities.

In the next two posts we’ll consider some of the other free marketing opportunities.

Cold calling – OK, so it’s no-ones favourite activity but, if you can get past the ‘gatekeeper’ it can still be pretty effective at getting a meeting. Many sales ‘experts’ emphasise the need to be disciplined, for maximum effectiveness. Suggesting a master-list, with a set number of calls, at the same time every day.

Email – Build and maintain a list of customers and prospects (they’ll need different messages.)
Our InBoxes are all full of spam, so you’ll need to ensure that your content is valuable, entertaining, interesting and really relevant to the audience, to avoid being seen as spam too.
(We’ll look at email marketing and low-cost CRM platforms in future posts.)

Web site – If it’s been a while since you added any content, or refreshed your site, now might be the time. It’s always wise to have a site that allows you to manage the content, rather than constantly paying the developers. Open source platforms like WordPress provide really effective content management systems, which is why it now powers 23% of the web. (Watch out for a future post on WordPress sites) Update your text and images, adding new items, offers or other enticements to get enquiries.

Add an ‘About’ page – If it’s missing, make sure you add a good ‘About’ page, describing your business, history, skills, experience and values. Your website is crucial in developing positive attitudes to your business, particularly trust.

Social media – There are some social channels which should not be ignored by B2B marketers. LinkedIn is a channel totally committed to business and with 15million users in the UK, there is definitely an audience looking for your product or service. You will need a personal page before you can create a company page, so build a strong personal profile, launch your company page and start attracting followers.
More than 15 million of us in the UK access Twitter (mostly from mobiles) so, once again, your prospects are able to receive your messages, once you start tweeting.
Facebook is a very powerful engagement tool for B2C marketers, but has less commercial relevance in B2B. It is, however, a very effective tool for communicating your business’ spirit, ethos and values, and is great way of engaging with your personnel and stakeholders.