What do "small" businesses do to help market their business when they do not have a marketing budget?

Social networking is the easiest - Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin.  Start with your friends and have them share with their friends.  Referrals are important.  Also consider a way to build a data base.  Utilize a register to win program for one of your products.  With a minimal investment you could have a booth at flea markets and events.  If you are selling a product from your home, invite the neighbors over, put a sign in your yard and have a samples sale from your garage.  Without a marketing budget it is very difficult to drive business, but it can be done.  You need to work on it constantly.  Good luck.

Social Media is a great way to do this, especially to connect with a local audience. Start by networking on social media and lead that into meeting up in real life. Grab a cup of coffee with someone to chat and genuinely get to know them better. You can also attend local networking events, join a mastermind group, etc.

If you answer my two questions below, I would be in a position to guide you to guerrilla marketing concepts at no cost to you:

1) What kind of product or service are you offering?

2) What is your industry and/or vertical?

Please bare in mind that creativity, ideation and conceptualization can't work effectively without a context. Your answers will give me an idea as to how and where your widget meets with potential clients.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Cheers,

Claudio

Pray!  Only kidding!

Word of mouth is always best but if you do need to advertise put the word out on social media and you can try a newspaper that reached a targeted market where the rates are affordable and run a classified ad.  In The Reporter those rates are extremely inexpensive and they do stand out!

Utilize social media to promote your small business. The process requires a front-end loaded investment in time, but it is well worth the effort when using free or very low cost utilities on the Internet. The return may surprise you.

Set up a Google or Word Press blog as an extension of your web site.  A blog is quite different from a web site. Provide good, solid information free of charge and use blog searches for synergistic businesses to team with. Teaming is an absolute necessity these days.

Be prepared to provide information, samples and valuable service gratis as a marketing tool. Introduce yourself and then immediately engage the client or potential teaming partner with your presentation tools available to bring your expertise to whatever topic they are interested in. 

Let them take you where they want to go with their concerns and their needs. Apply your presentation tools and expertise dynamically The idea is to refer clients to article links at your web site and your blog to avoid having to repeat yourself over and over in new business marketing, thereby keeping yourself available for specific inquiries and closing deals. 

Link everything together and begin answering questions as well as registering at many of the free applications for networking web sites on the Internet to see how that can benefit your product and services. Utilities like Twitter, Alignable, Pinterest and About Me will serve your site well. 

You may wish to consider Google Ad Sense for cash flow.  It is free and could supplement your income with ads in the margin of your blog. 

Integrating and networking platforms together is the best approach. Most of the free applications of the type discussed here have profile features to link back to your blog and many will automatically publish your content on their site, once linked. 

Content is king and the queen is a hub of strong useful information with spokes emanating from it like those of a wheel to many free social networking platforms where your brand, your consistency and your offerings drive the engine that is your enterprise.

Social Media Advertising! Great results for a limited budget. 

Hello, 

You can always use Social Media to market your business without paying for ads. Create an Instagram business profile and Facebook business acct. Create content that will showcase what your business is all about, but also add a personal touch. Remember people buy through emotion not logic. Connect in some ways with your ideal clients. 

Start with people you know and trust through calls and social media. Ask for referrals and grow the word of mouth. Like Joe stated.. you must find that budget and choose an outlet that will get your business into a tailored program designed to fit the needs of your business! 

I attend Expos, and Conventions, post card hand outs, etc...to promote my business.

Unfortunately, businesses without a marketing budget have traditionally failed. 

But there are some things you can do. The sales process has changed dramatically in the past few years. Today's consumers turn to the internet to research their problems long before they ever engage a salesperson. 

Start a blog on your website that provides information on how to solve the problem your targeted client experiences. They are going to research everything before they buy, including price, so you might as well teach them everything you know about what they are researching. Become an online expert in your field.

Schedule time to write every week. Every week. Blogging is free, but to get results, you have to do it.

Depending on your business, you should use Social Media which you can use at little or no cost. If your business is B2B, start with LinkedIn. Identify the problems you solve and write articles on how businesses can solve these problems. Repurpose the information from your blog and add it to your LinkedIn account.

If you are more of a B2C company, I would start with Facebook. Everyone is on Facebook. Keep in mind that Facebook (and Instagram and most other Social Media sites) throttle your posts. If you have 100 followers, you can expect that 15 of them will even have the chance to see your post. This is where boosted posts come in. Even a $10 or $20 boosted post will reach a large targeted audience.

Finally, make sure you provide an amazing experience for your clients. Not average. Not good enough. Amazing.

And invest $15 and buy Harry Beckwith's book Selling the Invisible. It is packed with stories and ideas on how to make your business stand out.

Best wishes!