Most entrepreneurs are in business to make a profit, but they’re throwing thousands of dollars away each year in wasted marketing spend … and they don’t even realize it.
There are three ways, and only three ways, to create more profit in a business. You can add more customers. You can get more customers to buy from you. You can decrease expenses. That’s it.
The good news is … drum roll … marketing has the power to help you do all three. It also has the power to suck your profits quickly into a money pit that makes your business feel more like an overwhelming sinkhole than a thrilling expedition up Profit Mountain.
If you’re like most business owners, you’re trudging along trying various overpriced marketing strategies, completely unaware there’s a more affordable way to ensure you aren’t getting taken on your quest towards market domination.
4 Ways to Create Marketing Materials for Free
Marketing agencies are expensive and hiring someone with all the skills you need to create a marketing piece for you is often almost impossible. Below are four ways you can avoid overpaying for marketing services.
1. Get Free Stock Photos For Any Campaign You’re Running
Under the Creative Commons (CC) license, there are hundreds of professional grade stock photos available to use at no cost to you. Businesses are free to use photographs the photographer has listed under a CC license. Just make sure to review the license details. Some licenses require you to give attribution, while others do not.
Below are my three favorite sites for free stock photos:
- Pexels.com
- StockSnap.io
- Gratisography.com
So the next time you’re pondering if you should spend $33-$100 for a stock photo or hire a photographer to capture the image you need, head over to one of these three sites. You just might find the image you need for free.
2. Design Free Flyers, Social Media Graphics, & More With No Graphic Design Experience … From Your Smartphone
I love Adobe Creative Suite. As a self taught graphic artist, it’s a tool I use on a daily basis in the office. But at home, I don’t want to pay an additional $50 a month to access my favorite creative tools. Plus, most of the time I find myself creating blogs and promotional pieces for my side business when I’m on the road and only have access to my Smartphone.
The good new is, there are a lot of free Apps on the market that make it easy to design professional looking graphics for free from your Smartphone. My two go-to Apps are:
- Adobe Spark Post
- Canva
Both Apps are fairly easy to learn, come with hundreds of templates, and allow you to publish professional grade graphics for free.
3. Save 50% Or More On Your Printed Marketing Materials
This next tip isn’t free, but it is like getting half of your print costs paid for without putting in a lot of extra effort.
My favorite online printer is VistaPrint. I always search out three companies for price quotes, and VistaPrint comes out cheapest 90% of the time…as long as I order with a coupon.
The key is, you have to order through them when they have a deal going on. Their deals change on a monthly basis, but you can often save 40% or more off their list prices if you have patience when you’re ordering. Make sure to checkout www.vistaprintdeals.com to find their current deals.
If you decide to order online with another print vendor, always do an online search for “their name + coupon” to see if a coupon code exists for your order.
4. Create Spliced Videos for Free from Your Smartphone
Videos are a great way to promote your
business online, but outsourcing editing and production can be expensive.
If you’re good and shooting video on your smartphone, there are two great Apps available for free that make editing and splicing videos together easy. My go to Apps for video production include:
- Splice (created by GoPro)
- Adobe Spark Video
So there you have it…four easy and affordable ways to create your own marketing materials without breaking the bank.
If you’re sick of throwing money away on well meaning marketing initiatives that flop, try out the aforementioned tools. Now that you know there are more affordable ways to grow your business, you can stop the marketing expense sinkhole and maximize your ROI.
