One complaint I often hear about marketing: it’s expensive. On the one hand, I truly believe that great marketing will pay off far more than any monetary investment you make but on the other hand, I completely understand that everything is expensive (especially right now!) and a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners are constantly looking for ways to cut costs.

The good news is that good marketing does not have to mean big money, and since I regularly work within the constraints of a tight budget, I have learned a lot of free marketing ideas over the years. So if you need a few easy and free ways to marketing your business, here are my top 5:

Why the 'Boost Post' Button on Facebook is a Waste of Money

Facebook ads are the bread and butter of marketing for a lot of small businesses, especially those who can’t afford to hire a marketing consultant. The good news is that social media ads can be extremely effective and cheap…but the bad news is that most people are throwing their time and money away by not understanding the basics of Facebook advertising. Spoiler alert: clicking the ‘Boost Post’ button for your ad and walking away is almost always a waste of your valuable resources. Here’s why.

Can I Reach Page 1 of Google?

If there’s one question relating to SEO that gets asked frequently and consistently, it’s this: how can I reach page 1 of Google - and is it even possible? There’s good reason for business owners to ask it. Depending on the source, a good 90% (at minimum) of traffic comes from page one, and few people even make it to page 2, let alone continue to look through pages of search results.

Google, which is prioritizing user experience even more this year, wants you to find the answers to your questions and the solutions to your problem without navigating to another page, or even sometimes without scrolling down! So, as a marketer, it’s good to wonder if you can reach the almighty first page of Google so you can attract the most customers possible.

Reaching page 1 of Google is part of my success story.

The Best Marketing Advice for 2021

It’s the new year (finally) and, like many people, you probably have a list of goals, new habits, and lifestyle changes you want to incorporate for the new year. Even if you’re not a ‘new years resolution’ kind of person, there’s something about a calendar rolling over that makes everything feel fresh, like we have the chance to make some real changes and dream a little bigger. I know 2021 isn’t (yet) the huge relief we are all looking for, but there’s hope on the horizon…maybe, just maybe, things will be different this year.

Regardless of what happens in the area of health and government this year, it’s more important than ever to market your business effectively and efficiently, using your resources in the best possible way to amplify your message. As I think towards what this year will bring, my best marketing advice for 2021 is this:

What's Your Holiday Marketing Plan?

I know, I know…summer is gone and fall is flying by, and it feels way too early to talk about the holidays. But if you’re a business owner, planning ahead is the name of the game when it comes to marketing, and this year is no exception. If you start cobbling together your holiday plans in December, you’re already behind the curve - and most other businesses will already have the wheels in motion!

So, what are some things you can do to market your products and services this Thanksgiving and Christmas season? Here are a few holiday marketing ideas…

The Three Best Podcasts for Online Businesses

I tend to listen to podcasts when I have a little extra time during the day…and, actually, when I feel like I have less time than usual. Let me explain…

When I have more downtime (which, I’ll be honest, is rare), I might sit and listen to a podcast and occasionally take notes. I spend time really focusing on what each word says, and thinking through it all. However, on most days I am rushing from one thing to the next, just trying to fit it all in. On days like that, I turn on a podcast whenever I am doing something with my hands but not my head.

If I’m trying to feed my toddler lunch, there’s almost no way I can listen clearly, but if I’m prepping dinner while she plays outside or I’m making graphics for blogs like this while she naps, I often turn on a podcast. Sometimes, admittedly, my mind wanders and I don’t soak in all the information, but every little bit helps, and I love learning while I’m doing other day-to-day tasks.

So what podcasts have helped me grow as an entrepreneur? Here are the top 3 podcasts I would recommend for any online business…

How My Business Pivoted in the Pandemic

As I've started to reflect on the last few months and what changes have happened, my initial thought was that nothing really changed in my business. After all, I run my business entirely online, and even local client communication is done via email and phone calls - so what did I even have to change?

Despite that fact, I actually did need to pivot my business in a few different ways, and when I started to really dig in I was surprised at all the things I changed to not only stay afloat, but keep moving forward. Here's what I did:

Five Creative Ways to Announce Your Business Re-Opening

Maybe it’s been months since your business had to close its doors, but now things are finally starting to re-open! The problem is that this is true for everyone in your niche, and it’s easy to get drowned out in the noise of announcements from every corner of the internet. How can you stand out as your business opens its doors again? Here are five creative ways to make your announcement and get attention from past and future customers.

3 Quick, Easy, and Free Marketing Actions to take Today: Five Minute Marketing

Marketing your small business is always a good idea, no matter what state our country is in - which, right now, is pretty precarious and differs wildly depending on where you live. While there’s no way to fully prepare for a pandemic that suddenly closes anything and everything, there are still tons of ways to market your business in the midst of chaos. Today’s five minute marketing tip is all about a few quick, easy, and free ways to market your business, both now and anytime in the future…

Five Minute Marketing: How to Use Google Analytics

Google Analytics. It’s the thing every business owners knows they should be using, and probably has installed on their website, but when it comes to actually figuring out what in the world to look at in the crazy confusion of the dashboard, many of us stall out and close the window. Maybe it feels good to have Analytics installed, but if you don’t know how to use it, it’s not going to help you in the long run!

I can’t possibly cover every aspect of the Google Analytics dashboard in one blog post, but here is a five-minute tutorial on how you can start using it to better your business today.

Why Bother with Search Engine Optimization? | Five Minute Marketing

As a business owner, you’ve got a million things on your plate…you have clients to keep happy, products and services to create, a thousand emails to answer (per DAY!), fires to put out, employees and contractors to deal with…and it’s already tax season again somehow! When it comes to marketing, the big push is to be visible on social media, and for now even that may feel like too much to handle!

Today, I am making a case for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and why it is even more important than social media marketing. Almost every business has a website, but very few business owners prioritize key updates needed to make their business show up on Google to potential customers. These are the top reasons why SEO matters as you consider your online success…

What Google and the Super Bowl have in Common

If you’re like me and almost every single person I know, you spent a few hours this Sunday sitting on your couch watching football…or at least, talking with a lot of people who were there for the purpose of watching Super Bowl 54 between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers. It’s a day that unites sports fanatics and non-football fans alike and, as with most things in life, it inspired my own thoughts about marketing and search engine optimization.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the Super Bowl and Search Engine Optimization actually have a lot in common. Confused? Don’t worry, I’ll explain…

How to Create a Marketing Strategy, Part 2

Now that you’ve evaluated your marketing efforts, let’s move to the next step: research. Now before you close your browser and go running for the hills, know that this step does not have to be complicated or take a very long time, but it is crucial in finding out where to market, and will give you a clear ‘why’ behind the marketing. You can post on Instagram all day long, but if your target marketing doesn’t live there, it’s not a good use of your time! Regardless of what decisions you make, you should at least know where you can go to reach your ideal customers.

There are a few different types of research you can conduct, so I’ll break down the basics here…although I can’t possibly exhaust every option in one blog post!

How to Create a Marketing Strategy, Part 1

If you’re reading this, I know you have heard of marketing before…in fact, you’re probably actively working to market something, whether you are a small business owner or you simply have a side hobby that makes a little extra cash. The key element that so many people are missing, however, is a clear marketing strategy that gives a path forward for what to do and how to do it. Most of our marketing efforts involve wasted time, energy, and possibly even money, and a marketing strategy is the most effective way to prevent this from happening.

One of my main roles is to create a marketing strategy for clients, from a landscaping company to a local day spa to photographers and everyone in between. The hardest part is knowing where to begin, so I wanted to write a series addressing the how-to of creating an effective marketing strategy that will serve you for years to come.

The first step in creating a marketing strategy is looking back at what worked and what didn’t for your business. Let’s break down what an actual business evaluation looks like.

How to Start Your First Blog

A little while ago I wrote a blog in response to an email about how to get started as a wedding photographer. No sooner did I finish that than I realized how many times I get asked about how to start a blog - any type of blog - by everyone from friends to family to new acquaintances! I am pretty passionate about blogging (I truly do consider it one of the best parts of my job) and I have tons of advice for anyone wanting to get started!

If you've ever thought about writing down personal thoughts or turning a blog into a business, here are some great tips to get you on the right foot.

1) Define what you want to do and to whom you want to write.

Five Minute Marketing, BusinessMaria Grace PhotographyJanuary 8, 2020blogging

Five Minute Marketing: How to Immediately Get More Facebook Likes...for Free!

The title of this post may sound gimmicky, but I’m not into gimmicks…just marketing advice that is 100% true and 100% helpful…yet easy to implement at the same time. That said, let me jump right into the easiest way to increase your Facebook likes for free!

The truth is, as much as it seems like the opposite is true, Facebook wants your business page to succeed. The happier you are with the results you see, the more advertising dollars they get and the more satisfied the consumer (aka anyone not running a business) is, which leads to their own business success. Yes, they have become a ‘pay-to-play’ platform in many respects, but they offer the most options for getting to know who your ideal customer truly is…and reaching them quickly and easily, even if you have to pay a little to do that…

Five Minute Marketing: How to Write Your Instagram Bio

You have 150 characters, and that’s it. That’s all you get to introduce yourself to the Instagram world, and you know you have to make it count. So what in the world can you write?

I know that the same formula won’t work for everyone, but here are a few ideas about exactly how to write your Instagram bio.

What to Include…

Five Minute MarketingMaria Grace PhotographyNovember 25, 2019instagram, online marketing, social media

Five Minute Marketing: What is SEO?

There are a lot of buzzwords that get thrown around in the world of online marketing, and one of the most popular is “SEO.” Web hosting services claim to have the best SEO out there, companies sell their SEO services, and small businesses obsess over whether their SEO is optimized. But at the end of the day, what is it really? And how can you achieve the best SEO possible?

In its simplest terms, SEO is Search Engine Optimization. It is a ranking given to a website that will push it higher or lower in search results. The ‘gold standard’ of SEO is to be on the very first page of results for a particular search, because the amount of people who visit your website will increase dramatically when yours is the easiest to find…

Five Minute Marketing: How to Find New Customers on Social Media

Let me start off with a disclaimer: there are literally books written about this topic that I’m covering in a five minute marketing segment, so I am by no means claiming to cover it all with one article. I can, however, share some effective strategies most of my clients aren’t already using to find new customers using social media.

My second disclaimer is that although this article will only take about five minutes to read, the strategies themselves will require time and consistency, since nothing done randomly can be effectively repeated. With all that said, here are some things you can do right now to find new clients using Facebook, Instagram, and more…

Five Minute Marketing: How to Use Hashtags on Social Media

Oh, hashtags. Such a big, beautiful, and confusing topic that provides frustration for every business owner and entrepreneur. While opinions differ on the best hashtag strategy for Instagram and social media in general, there are a few rules that can help inform exactly what you do and why. Here is what I’ve learned through years of marketing about how hashtags can help - and hurt - your social media presence.

1) There is a limit to hashtags on Instagram.
Right now, you can use no more than 30 per post. Creator Studio will tell you exactly how many you are using, but if you are writing the caption yourself or using another scheduling service, you will have to manually count them or your post/comment will be rejected…

Maria Grace, LLC
Online Marketing Solutions for Small Businesses
Hours of Operation: Monday-Friday; 8am-5pm

Copyright 2023 Maria Grace, LLC

What to Include…

Maria Grace, LLCOnline Marketing Solutions for Small BusinessesHours of Operation: Monday-Friday; 8am-5pm

Maria Grace, LLC
Online Marketing Solutions for Small Businesses
Hours of Operation: Monday-Friday; 8am-5pm