Lewis Howes worked his way into a career playing arena football.
It was a dream come true.
But then – after just one season on the field – a single injury broke his arm and shattered his hopes for a future as an athlete.
It seemed like all hope was lost, but he didn’t let that stop him. He rebuilt his life, reinventing himself as a marketer and going on to build a multimillion dollar media agency that advertises for some of the biggest brands in the world.
But he wasn’t always playing with massive advertising budgets – in the early days, he had to create high-impact marketing on a virtually zero-dollar budget.
How’d he manage that? Here are six of his biggest strategies.
1. LinkedIn Groups
Howes is a big proponent of LinkedIn groups. The owner of several himself, he sees LinkedIn groups as a tried-and-true strategy for creating authority and positioning yourself as a thought leader in the space.
Even more critically, building a LinkedIn group gives you an engaged, captive audience that you can eventually convert into customers.
By feeding the group with high-quality content and regularly updating to maintain engagement, you can bring members further down your conversion funnel while still adding value to the group.
2. Facebook Groups
When it comes to social media for business, LinkedIn isn’t the only game in town. Facebook groups can also be incredibly powerful from a marketing perspective.
Inherently, Facebook will be less targeted than LinkedIn. Facebook is truly a “social” network, whereas LinkedIn is purely about professional connections.
That said, Facebook can provide a broader reach and help you bring people into the group you might not have found on LinkedIn.
And, used wisely, you can turn your Facebook group into a source of growth for your LinkedIn group and vice versa – and both are an opportunity to generate new leads for your business.
3. Host a LinkedIn Event
In a world where everything happens online, in-person experiences may seem outdated – but the truth is, they’re more powerful than ever.
Try using LinkedIn to host and promote a professional event of some kind: a networking meetup, a seminar, or anything else that seems appropriate. If you can secure high-value speakers or panelists as guests, that’s even better.
Throwing an event like this is an excellent way to make key connections in your industry, and it also positions you as the “starter” and thought leader behind it all. Use your LinkedIn and Facebook groups to promote it.
A LinkedIn event doesn’t have to be massive to be successful. Even if only 20 people show up, those are highly-targeted connections that may turn into customers or key business relationships.
4. Use Cheap, Fast Video
We live in the age of video.
Video is stickier, more engaging, and better-received than almost any other format of content, which means it’s critical to integrate video into your marketing strategy.
But does that mean you have to spend $20,000 to shoot a video every other week?
Absolutely not.
Instead of going high end, keep it simple. Use your phone or computer camera to create short, simple videos.
With a little bit of effort in the framing, a high-value offer, and an engaging speaking voice, you can create a high-quality piece of video content in just five minutes.
And if you do that on a regular basis, you’ll multiply the impact of your marketing.
5. Host a Webinar
Webinars are a powerful marketing tool because the impact is two-fold.
On one level, you can host the webinar live, turning it into an event and creating engagement in real-time.
But after the live event ends, you can still use the video as evergreen content for your website and marketing materials.
If you host a webinar that provides actionable advice on something your customer set wants to learn how to do, you can use it as an event to improve name recognition and connect with customers and industry contacts – and you’ll walk away with high-quality content that you can repurpose wherever you see fit.
6. Give Something for Nothing
In the modern world, providing value without asking for anything in return is almost a given.
The catch is that most of the time, you need to provide a lot more value than you expect to get the results you want.
Giving away a product for free – meaning the full product, not a demo version – is still one of the most powerful marketing tactics around.
While many fear giving away a product will lower perceived value or impact sales, the reverse is usually true. Most of the time, giving away your product helps get your name out there, create demand for the product, and bring in more paying customers.
Best of all, this strategy can be repurposed in combination with any of the tips listed above. You might host a product giveaway with your Facebook group, give your product to the first 20 people to RSVP to your webinar, or include it as part of attending your LinkedIn event.
It’s an endlessly flexible strategy. And in almost every instance, it’s a great marketing tactic.
Start Today
The beauty of these tips is that – true to most of the things Lewis Howes recommends – you can use them immediately.
There’s nothing stopping you from getting online and creating a LinkedIn group, using your phone to record a quick 90-second video explaining a key concept, or even setting up an event on LinkedIn. All of these tactics are plug and play.
So what are you waiting for?
Growth only happens through action. Get out there and try these marketing strategies today.