7 Awesome Ways to Market Your Business Without Feeling Salesy

When it comes time to market your business, whether it’s your blog or your side hustle website, it can feel a little icky. Particularly if you’ve never had to market yourself before.

I feel like marketing a new small business can feel like you’re pitching all the time. And at times, you might feel like you’re coming across as ‘salesy’.

That feeling—that ickiness—you don’t have to feel that way. Especially when there are so many ways to market your small business without feeling pushy or salesy.

But how?

By utilising different types of marketing strategies that aren’t all about the sale…

If you’re always looking for the sale, then you’re going to always sound salesy. No matter how good your product or service is, or how sincere you might be.

Effective marketing strategies focus on the end user result—how it benefits them.

If you’re on the same page as me and want to serve others and feel good about what you’re doing, follow me…

How to Market Your Business Using Online Marketing Ideas (and Still Feel Good About It)

#1: Educate Your Peeps

This is one of the best ways to market your business through providing educational content. This could be by way of a how-to blog post, a training video or podcast that shows people how to make the most out of your product or service.

This is also not about the sell. This is about providing your peeps with stuff they can learn and implement WITHOUT having to buy your product or service.

Although doing so will make their life easier, right?

#2: Use Pinterest

I’m picking that most of you will have a large female target audience… did you know that woman make up over 70% of users on Pinterest?

That means you need to get your butt over there and start sharing your content there. You can do both a mixture of your free stuff and also link to your paid stuff. All you have to do is create beautiful pins that attract your target audience.

Here're some examples of pins that grab attention (see if you can spot mine!):

Pinterest is my largest traffic driver. It’s free to use and addictive, both for business and personal use.

Figure out what your target audience loves and then share it on Pinterest. Making sure you link back to your awesome content, both free and paid.

You’ll thank me if you just do this one thing!

#3: Use a Google Business Page

You'll want to set up a ‘my business page’ — this will show up in Google search results. Including maps and Google+ and allows your customers to leave reviews… which is what you want.

It doesn’t matter if you have a service or product type business. Reviews make some of the best marketing strategies that are free to use and allow you to drive traffic back to your website.

This also allows you to manage your online presence.

If you’re looking to show up in local searches, then you need to implement this strategy.

Google+ Local helps influence search rankings of any pages or people you’re connected to. Which means your business will appear in their search results. Win:win.

#4: Utilise Facebook Groups

This is one of my fave ways to market my business.

Join relevant Facebook groups. You can promote your products, services, and free content each week. Make sure you follow their guidelines, though.

Facebook Groups are also a great way to show your expertise by helping answer questions people might have.

Make sure you link to your website in your profile so that they can ‘stalk’ you to find out how to connect with you further.

#5: Guest Post Strategically

Developing a solid guest posting strategy is key to this being successful for your blog. If you just guest post willy-nilly, well, the results are going to be less than ideal.

To start, do a Google search: “your niche + guest post” — this will find industry specific sites for you to approach.

Only post on sites that are going to give you good traffic boosts. Yes, it’s good karma to guest post on a new blog, but limit those guest posts to less than five a year.

Create a freebie specific to that guest post so that you can entice people back to your blog to check out you. Some ideas that work well include a free training video or webinar or a cheat sheet that allows them to implement your ideas quickly.

#6: Join HARO

Help a reporter out (HARO) is a great way to establish your expertise and get featured on a website for free.

If your answer is accepted, you’ll get free PR for your business. You'll get links from publications like Huffington Post, Forbes etc without having to go the guest post route.

[feature_box_creator style=”1″ width=”700″ top_margin=”5″ bottom_margin=”5″ top_padding=”5″ right_padding=”” bottom_padding=”5″ left_padding=”” alignment=”center” bg_color=”#75d7e1″ bg_color_end=”#0eb9cb” border_color=”” border_weight=”” border_radius=”” border_style=”” font_size=”14″ font_font=”Montserrat” font_shadow=”none”]

Pro Tip: If you’re looking to create a mammoth blog post about your topic and want input from other industry experts, ask your own questions on HARO too.

[/feature_box_creator]

#7: Utilise Quora

This is a strategy that many of my online friends have been using with great success.

This site is best used if you are a subject matter expert and you’re looking to provide free advice in exchange for a link back to your website or specific product or service.

My friend, Dave Chesson from Kindlepreneur, has had some amazing success with this. I have had smaller results, mainly because I haven’t been as consistent with this marketing strategy online.

And that’s the key to implementing any of these marketing tips for small businesses.

If you aren’t consistent with a strategy—if you take a scattered approach—then nothing will stick and you’ll have to subject your potential customers to awful salesy techniques.

Now that you’ve got some options to market your business, which one are you going to try first? Tell me in the comments below and let me know what your results are so we can compare notes.

[optin_box style=”12″ alignment=”center” email_field=”email” email_default=”Enter your email address” integration_type=”convertkit” double_optin=”Y” thank_you_page=”https://hustleandgroove.com/thanksforsubscribing” list=”42312″ name_field=”name” name_default=”Enter your first name” name_required=”N” opm_packages=””][optin_box_field name=”headline”][/optin_box_field][optin_box_field name=”paragraph”]PHA+PGEgaHJlZj0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy5odXN0bGVhbmRncm9vdmUuY29tL3dwLWNvbnRlbnQvdXBsb2Fkcy8yMDE2LzA0L0pPSU4tVEhFLUhHLVNFQ1JFVC1WQVVMVC5qcGciPjxpbWcgY2xhc3M9ImFsaWduY2VudGVyIHNpemUtZnVsbCB3cC1pbWFnZS0zNDYzIiBzcmM9Imh0dHA6Ly93d3cuaHVzdGxlYW5kZ3Jvb3ZlLmNvbS93cC1jb250ZW50L3VwbG9hZHMvMjAxNi8wNC9KT0lOLVRIRS1IRy1TRUNSRVQtVkFVTFQuanBnIiBhbHQ9IkpvaW4gdGhlIEgmYW1wO0cgU2VjcmV0IFZhdWx0IHRvZGF5ISIgd2lkdGg9IjcwMCIgaGVpZ2h0PSIzMDAiLz48L2E+PC9wPgo=[/optin_box_field][optin_box_field name=”privacy”]We value your privacy and would never spam you — that's just gross. You can unsubscribe at anytime.[/optin_box_field][optin_box_field name=”top_color”]undefined[/optin_box_field][optin_box_button type=”1″ text=”Access Now” text_size=”20″ text_color=”#ffffff” text_font=”Montserrat;google” text_bold=”Y” text_letter_spacing=”0″ text_shadow_panel=”Y” text_shadow_vertical=”1″ text_shadow_horizontal=”0″ text_shadow_color=”#0eb9cb” text_shadow_blur=”0″ styling_width=”20″ styling_height=”17″ styling_border_color=”#027381″ styling_border_size=”1″ styling_border_radius=”6″ styling_border_opacity=”100″ styling_shine=”Y” styling_gradient_start_color=”#0eb9cb” styling_gradient_end_color=”#027381″ drop_shadow_panel=”Y” drop_shadow_vertical=”1″ drop_shadow_horizontal=”0″ drop_shadow_blur=”1″ drop_shadow_spread=”0″ drop_shadow_color=”#027381″ drop_shadow_opacity=”50″ inset_shadow_panel=”Y” inset_shadow_vertical=”0″ inset_shadow_horizontal=”0″ inset_shadow_blur=”0″ inset_shadow_spread=”1″ inset_shadow_color=”#0eb9cb” inset_shadow_opacity=”50″ location=”optin_box_style_12″ button_below=”Y”]Access Now[/optin_box_button] [/optin_box]