How do I get customers with no marketing budget?

Marketing is optional, conversations are not

Marketing is a way to get attention. You do not need attention from thousands of strangers. You need a few dozen conversations with the right people. That is a hand-to-hand job, and it costs time.

Free does not mean easy. The free route asks for about 30 minutes a day of steady work. It pays back slowly at first and then compounds, because each customer is a reference for the next hundred.

The fictional example is Hartwell Web Support, run by one person, Jonah Pruitt, who has no budget and a small client list.

The free methods, in order of speed

Start at the top. Each item below costs nothing but time.

• Past customers: write to each one, thank them, and ask if they need anything or know someone who does.
• Open and lost quotes: call them. A person who asked for a price once is easier to reopen than a stranger.
• Referrals: ask your three happiest customers for one introduction each. Make it easy by writing a two-line blurb they can forward.
• Direct email: build a list of 50 to 100 named buyers by hand and email them from your own Gmail with a short message and four follow-ups.
• Where your buyers talk: answer questions in the communities where they ask them. Be useful first. Never post the same pitch everywhere.

Build a list without paying for data

You can build a list free. Search for businesses in your target group, open each website, and write down the person who makes the buying decision from the team or about page. For addresses, many sites list a general one, and a named person's address tends to get better replies.

It takes about three minutes a person. A hundred names is five hours, which is a long weekend afternoon. That is the cost of free. If five hours is too many, a paid tool is a trade of money for those hours, and you can decide that later.

Whatever you do, honor opt-outs and include your real address in commercial email.

Where free runs out

Free methods work until the repeat work eats your day: finding people, sending, following up, answering. If you notice follow-ups slipping because you are busy serving customers, that is the moment software starts to pay for itself.

Compare it to your hourly value. If an hour of your time is worth $50 and a tool saves you eight hours a month, it earns its keep at a few hundred dollars. That is arithmetic, and your numbers will differ.

If you add one tool

Rocketship starts at $24.99 a month (Launch), with a 7-day free trial, card required. Launch includes no phone number, and a line is $5 a month. It finds named buyers, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up, answers replies and books the meeting, so the repetitive half of the plan above runs without you. Importing your own contacts is free, and Launch includes 50 leads a month.

Compare plans on the pricing page, or read how the cheapest way to do outbound adds up.