You’ve begun to establish yourself in the direct sales world and you need to keep the momentum going. You need promotion, but promoting your business can get expensive. Luckily, we have some ideas on how to gain new audiences and create brand awareness without breaking the bank.

Before we get into our recommendations, we should emphasize the importance of deciding on your budget. How much money are you willing to spend on advertising your business? That figure will help guide you on which options work best for your budget.

Now, about those tips…

Promote Customer Referrals

Customer referrals, also called Word-of-Mouth-Advertising, are a powerful tool when it comes to promoting your business. Most likely, before you buy a product on Amazon, you look at the customer reviews because you know you’ll get a more honest impression from customers about what the product you’re interested in is really like. The same concept applies here. Potential customers are more willing to trust your current clients rather than you when it comes to the quality of your products. That’s why you should encourage them to leave positive feedback about your business on your social pages. You can reach out to them through targeted email marketing, social sharing, or a call-to-action on your blog posts. With referrals in hand, you can then post quotes from customers on your website, in brochures and in your email signature.

Create a Challenge or a Poll

This is a free and creative way to get people excited about your products. You can create a challenge out of any product. For example, if you sell clothing, do a challenge around the theme, “Who Wore it Best?” to inspire people to post creative ways to wear certain clothing products you’re selling. Another option would be to add polls to your Instagram Stories. Not only is it a great way to encourage participation from your followers but it’s also a terrific way to find out more about your target audience. Take two selfies, one with a chocolate meal replacement shake, and one with vanilla, and poll which flavor people like best. Elise Darma has some great advice on how to create Instagram Story polls.

Create Custom T-Shirts

One of the best ways you can advertise your own business is by wearing it! Create T-shirts with your business logo on them and some catchy text. Think of yourself as a walking billboard but at a much cheaper cost. Spending $10 to $20 on a T-shirt about your business is a great conversation starter and a surefire way to get people talking about your brand. You’ll also find new audiences at places your marketing campaigns don’t usually reach, like on a hiking trail, at the grocery store or mall, or at the dog park. To get you started, here’s a list of the top 10 custom T-shirt printing companies of 2019. Not a designer? That’s okay. Most of these companies offer design tools to make designing your T-shirts easier. Embarrassing  as this sounds, for those of you with a larger budget, consider vehicle wrap advertising. But be warned, this can get expensive, costing as much as $2,000. Wrapify and Carvertise are companies you can use to wrap your car, with the potential to earn extra money while you’re doing it.