What you can actually do for free with your small business marketing

1. Get your Google Business Profile working properly

This is completely free and for many small businesses it's one of the easiest marketing jobs to neglect.

If you have a physical location, work with people in a particular area or know people search for your business by name, get it properly filled in. A beauty salon can keep its opening hours and booking link current. A wedding décor business can upload recent work. A local café can share updates and new menus. An accommodation business can make sure somebody planning a trip finds useful, current information rather than photos taken four years ago.

You can add services, photos, posts, links and reviews without spending anything. I've written a full guide on this if you're wondering whether a Google Business Profile is actually relevant to your business.

2. Use the free scheduling tools you've already got

You don't automatically need another subscription to schedule your social media. Meta Business Suite lets you schedule Facebook and Instagram content, LinkedIn has native scheduling and so do platforms such as Pinterest and YouTube.

If you're posting a manageable amount of content across a couple of platforms, those free tools may be absolutely fine and that's the important bit, maybe.

I'm not going to tell you a free tool is always better just because it doesn't cost anything. If you're spending half an hour copying the same thing into four different places every time you post, suddenly "free" is costing you quite a lot in time.

Use the free option while it makes your life easier. Pay for something when the paid option genuinely solves a problem, not because somebody on Instagram told you it's an essential part of running a business.

3. Stop creating everything from scratch

This is probably the free marketing opportunity I see wasted most often. You don't always need another idea; you probably need to do more with the good ideas you've already had.

Let's say you're a florist and you've photographed the process of creating flowers for a wedding. That could become a Reel showing the transformation, a carousel explaining how you chose the flowers, a Pinterest pin, a Story answering a question about seasonal flowers, a blog about choosing wedding flowers, a newsletter section and a Google Business Profile update.

Or perhaps you're an independent travel agent and you've created a guide to some of your favourite places to visit in Sicily. That could become a blog, several social posts, a carousel, Pinterest content, part of an email newsletter and something useful to send directly to a client who's thinking about booking a similar trip.

One idea, several useful pieces of marketing. That's very different from copying and pasting exactly the same caption everywhere.

Most people underuse what they've already created, not because the content isn't good enough, but because it never occurs to them to use it again in a different way.

Free isn't really the question

The question isn't really, "Can I do my marketing for free?" You probably can.

The better question is, "Is doing it this way still working for my business?"

Because there's a point where saving £15 a month on a tool while spending three extra hours doing something manually makes absolutely no sense. There's also a point where posting yourself is technically free, but you're losing half a day every week to Canva when you could be seeing clients, making products, running your venue or doing the actual work people pay you for.

There can be a point where you're posting regularly, doing all the "right" things and still not really getting anywhere. That's usually not because you need another free app.

Sometimes it's the strategy that's missing

Posting three times a week isn't a strategy, and neither is downloading another content calendar.

If you're creating content because Tuesday has arrived and apparently you need to post something, it's very easy to stay busy without actually moving the business forward. What are you trying to be known for? Who are you trying to reach? Which services or products actually need more visibility? Where are those people looking for businesses like yours? What should happen after somebody discovers you?

Those are the questions that start turning marketing activity into an actual plan.

If you're doing plenty yourself but you're not sure whether it's actually working towards the right things, an Alignment Power Hour gives us time to look at what you're currently doing, what's working, what isn't and where your focus would be better spent.

Sometimes you simply don't have the time

There's no prize for doing every part of your business yourself. If you've got the time, interest and headspace to manage your own marketing, brilliant. Use the free tools, learn what works and keep going.

But if you're spending Sunday night trying to think of an Instagram caption when you'd rather be doing literally anything else, that's useful information too.

The point of outsourcing isn't that you can't do it yourself. It's that at some stage your time becomes more valuable elsewhere, whether that's seeing clients, creating, travelling to appointments, running events, packing orders or simply having some time away from the business.

Silver Lining Social works with wellness, creative and lifestyle founders in a few different ways, from helping you get clear on the strategy to taking social media off your plate altogether.

If you're not sure what would actually make the biggest difference to your marketing right now, that's exactly why I created Where to Start. Answer a few quick questions and you'll get a much clearer idea of where you stand, what might need some attention and where I'd focus first.