14 Steps To Promote Your Business After Launching

Hi! My name is Milya Kotery, I am a freelance expert and content marketer. I talk about selling your digital products and increasing your freelance income. Follow if you want to know more about leveling up your freelance business!

If you opened this article, then I think you’ve already launched your business and now think, “what to do next?”, “how to get the first sales?” and “how to promote my business?”. In this post, I give you a roadmap that you can use as a step-by-step guide to promoting your business. You can create a checklist from this guide and check what you’ve already done to know what volume of work you need to do next.

Disclaimer: I added some affiliate links in this article; it doesn’t have extra cost for you but helps me create more helpful content for business owners 🙂

Let’s go!

Source: Pexels

What channels do you need to use to promote business

So, let’s conclude that you have already decided what to sell, your target audience, and how you organize the process. Now you need to make your first sales and find customers. Where to find them?

Here’s the list of channels for promoting your business after launching:

1. Your website and blog
2. Social media: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn
3. Video platforms: TikTok, YouTube, Reels
4. Reddit
5. Quora
6. Social media ads: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn
7. YouTube and TikTok Ads
8. Google Ads
9. Medium blog
10. Email marketing
11. Live chat on the website
12. Craigslist or other local advertisements boards
13. Cross-promotion
14. Partnerships with non-competitors from your industry

The more channels you use, the more clients and, consequently, revenue you get. That’s why I advise you to use all of them and start with at least half of this list. The most important ones are ads, email marketing, live chat, partnerships, and boards. All the rest are essential, too, but they won’t give you the instant result–so you need to develop them to get the results in the future consistently.

It’s like seeds that you plant–they won’t grow in a day, but they will give you a vast harvest in several months and for the next several years. So it is significant to use both fast and long-term ways for promotion.

Let’s learn each way to promote your business.

Blog on your website

You may already know about such things as SEO–Search Engine Optimization. When people search for something on Google, they already know what they want to find (and maybe buy). They already have a problem they want to resolve. And if you know your customer well, you can write a post that will resolve their problem and lead them to your product.

In this guide, know how to create a site with a blog easily and fast by yourself.

If you are a health coach, your customer may want to know how to grow healthy habits. He will type on Google “how to start creating healthy habits” and open your article with several steps for beginners. If your post is helpful, the reader will add it to bookmarks and see if you have something else about health. He’ll go to your home page, know that you’re a coach, and think that maybe he will come to you one day. But now he wants to learn more about health…

Social media

…So, he will go to your Instagram or Facebook to receive valuable tips about healthy habits for free on a regular basis.

He follows your accounts, reads your posts, watches your videos, and sees that you are an expert. You know what you’re talking about. Then you tell in stories that you launch a program about getting healthy habits for beginners… and he thinks: “Maybe it’s a good time to try!”. He goes to your course–and you get your customer.

That’s how the simplest sales funnel works. A person who has a problem finds you on Google or an Instagram feed and is interested in your content. If it fits his needs, he can stay with you–so he gets to your sales funnel. And your job is to lead him to the sale.

Video marketing

Video marketing is now the leading source of content–it receives 82% of web traffic. People love to watch videos, especially short ones. That’s why TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts are so popular right now.

If you are familiar with the camera, it won’t be a problem to shoot your tips and hacks on the video. If not, you can create faceless videos with graphics and stock videos. It’s not a problem. The main criteria for success are creating helpful videos that will be interesting for your target audience and help them know about you as an expert in your field. Algorithms will do the rest.

So after creating text content for your website blog, resize it for your Instagram and Facebook (and LinkedIn if you sell B2B) posts and then transform it into video scripts. You create one article and get up to 5 text posts and short videos for your accounts. Also, you can create a long YouTube video from the full article (10–15 minutes is the best duration).

And vice versa: if you already have some videos or webinars, you can create text content from them. If you don’t want to do everything by yourself as it takes much time, hire a virtual assistant–they usually do such tasks, and it won’t cost you much. Your time definitely costs more if you’re an expert or a business owner. Virtual assistants also help with content ideas and writing, updating site content and email copywriting, so I highly recommend them.

Do you need ideas for your content on Instagram and TikTok or a site blog? Book a consultation, and I will create a list of ideas that will sell your services and products with high conversion.

Reddit

You could be surprised, but Reddit is an excellent place for networking. First, you can research how your customers think and what they want because Reddit is the place where they discuss their needs and thoughts (by the way, you can do this on Facebook and LinkedIn groups, too–there are many people who ask questions about different products and share their needs).

Second, you can directly tell people about your site, social media account, or product. For example, they ask where to buy hand-made scarves? If you make them, you can recommend visiting your site or your Etsy shop.

Just search for subreddits in your area of interest and find people who want to know more about you.

Quora

Quora, just like Reddit, is another good place for researching your target audience’s needs and generating leads. People come here to ask different questions, and it is not prohibited to promote your links–but do it gently and with respect to the users. If your answer to their question is detailed and helpful, they will trust you and follow the links you provide.

On the contrary, if all you want is to sell, they will feel it and don’t believe you. Don’t be obsessive and don’t show the need to sell–show a desire to help.

Social Media Ads

I told you about free promotion methods; now we go to paid methods. And first and main is the ad.

Go to Facebook Business Manager, establish your Ads Account and run your first ad. Before that, it will be helpful to read the official guides from Facebook: here are the technical requirements, and in Meta Blueprint you will find free courses about setting and optimizing Facebook Ads. If you need expert knowledge and experience, go to Fiverr Learn: there are many good courses from experts who have already launched a massive amount of ads and know precisely what to do and what not to do.

If you sell B2B, explore LinkedIn Learning Center to know where to start with LinkedIn Ads.

When you promote your product on social media, you can choose what audience will see your ads, and also you can show them to people who have already visited your site or bought something (they are more loyal than a “cold” audience who doesn’t know you yet).

Some experts say that Facebook/LinkedIn ad is profitable only when you show it to a warm audience; in other way, you will spend too much money to attract and engage a cold audience. I recommend using Google Ads first, then tracking visitors and showing them ads on social media to return them to your site or get them into your email funnel.

Google Ads

So, if you want immediate results and high conversion, use Google Ads. When people search for something–for example, “a video editing course,” they already know what they want. And you can show your ad only to people who are ready to buy something from you. It can be expensive, but this method has a huge revenue: so even if you spend much, you will earn much more.

To prevent significant expenses, hire a specialist who already knows what keywords and settings to use in your campaign. Since this method is not cheap, you definitely don’t want to spend your budget on ineffective ads. You can find them on Fiverr: there are many qualified specialists with fair prices.

A Medium blog

Medium is a platform for bloggers where you don’t need to pay for hosting and domain–you can publish your text for free and organically find your audience. I recommend using Medium as a second platform for your content: duplicate all of your site blog’s content and increase your online presence.

It is crucial to have a blog on your own site because it increases trust from customers, but Medium helps you find readers without your active participation: you just post and wait. Of course, it is better to think about optimization, a good title, and the right publication to place your post.

Yes, there is such thing as “publications”: you need to find where your audience can appear and submit as an author there. For example, I post my articles in “Freelancer’s Hub” sometimes:

Email marketing

When you launch your site, add sign-up forms. I use MailerLite; you can try ConvertKit, Mailchimp, or ActiveCampaign. Give people valuable something for free (it must have a connection to your product or services), and they will give you their contacts, so you can collect the emails and start a sales funnel then.

As email marketing is still very profitable, it can become one of your main income streams. Create the proper funnel: first, give people some free tools and tips (usefulness), then tell them about you, your product, and how you can solve your customer’s problem. Use 3–5 emails in sequence to sell your product. Don’t forget to use triggers: limited time, limited offer. People love to have something exclusive and get discounts–use it to increase the revenue!

Need help in creating the right email sequence? Contact me, and I will write the most profitable emails in your life.

Live chat on the website

When people want to buy something, they rarely do it immediately. First, they need to ask several questions and think if the product fits their needs. In offline shops, they can go to consultants, but there is no direct connection with workers online. You’re mistaken if you think people will send you an email and wait for your response. They want an immediate answer, and if they don’t get it, they go to your competitor.

So use live chat on your site. You can use a chatbot for frequently asked questions and connect with an operator if a customer wants to ask something special. It doesn’t cost much, but it increases your conversion very well. I recommend Tidio, HubSpot, and Respond.io.

Craigslist and other boards

If you sell something physical, especially locally, Craigslist or another advertisement board is the first place to promote your business. It is free, and a massive amount of your potential customers are already searching for something they want to buy. It is almost like Google Ads, but without expenses!

You can also promote services there, especially offline services such as moving help, yard working, tutoring, etc.

Cross-promotion

When you already have some followers or subscribers, you can find someone with a similar audience and do a cross-promotion. For example, if you organize weddings, you can find a photographer who will tell about your services on his Instagram, and you will talk about him and show his wedding photos on your Facebook or Instagram. You both will have new followers who can be interested in wedding professionals and can hire you in the future.

Partnerships with non-competitors from your industry

A similar method to the previous is partnerships, but it is a bit more complex. You can collaborate with someone who works in your niche but is not your direct competitor. For example, a photographer and a wedding planner are not competitors but can work together: when you have an order for a wedding, you can offer your colleague as a photographer and get some commission, and vice versa. When the photographer gets an order, he recommends you as a planner.

Or, if you sell perfumes, you can collaborate with a cosmetic brand and create a gift box with a unique design and price for both of your customers.

Be creative, be proactive, tell everyone about you–and you always will have clients and increase your income every month.

Get my free guide on 7 ways to monetize your expertise and earn more if you are an expert or creator here. In this guide, I talk about what methods you can apply today and what to do to promote your products even without a budget.