Automating Your Marketing Processes for Free

Set Up Your Web Site

The first thing most startups do after branding is build a brochure web site, then move either towards building a sales funnel through landing pages or they build out an e-commerce site. There is a cost for your domain name registration and web hosting. I use dreamhost.com for both. They’re cheap and dependable. WordPress and Shopify are open source and free to use to start, but there are costs as you move forward, especially into e-commerce. If you know how to code, you may want to experiment with Drupal and other old school Content Management Systems (CMS) software or go straight to HTML-5, bootstrap and more. After you have that process completed, search for suitable themes for your web site. Many are free, other can cost a few hundred dollars. There are several web sites on the web offering themes for WordPress and Shopify, so simply google “free WordPress themes” and there are no limit of links to good, free stuff.

SEO is important and getting your self “found” by the search engines and your target audience. When writing posts, tag and use categories generously. They will automatically create pages based on those tags and categories which will enable you to get more content out there with a different format. Go out and find a free xml site map generator for your site to scan your site after all that is done and submit the site map to google.

Automating Social Media

First I use a free plugin on my web site that automatically sends a post to my LinkedIn corporate page whenever I upload a blog post. I use ifttt.com which has free “recipes” to automate posts, so once the post shows up on LinkedIn, it also shows up on Twitter and Facebook.

Automate Your Email Campaigns

I then use a free MailChimp template to automatically send out snippets of any new blog posts that get posted that week. (You will need to add a new email campaign, click on automated and then click on “Share blog Updates” to get started. )

I also write a bunch of blog posts at a time, so I devote a whole day or so to getting them done and scheduled, so it’s basically on autopilot for 90 days.

NOTE: I’m not getting paid for any of these links. If you need this done for you, this is how I would recommend you do it. Once you get this far, this link lists all sorts of cool web stuff like UI/UX tools, debugging software, etc.

I’m always looking for free tools to automate these types of mindless tasks, but this process was a huge time saver! What tools do you use to automate your marketing for free or at a low cost (remember, your time is money, too!)? If you have better tools that you’ve found, please share them in the comments.

Do you want to outsource this type of work so that you can focus on higher level activities? Subscribe today to learn more about building your business and receive a free PDF “Process Plan for Creating Your Own Innovation Program”. Feel free to email us to learn more about how we can help you grow your business.