What if I told you there’s a surefire way to access your target audience without spending a dime? You don’t need anything; it’s completely free and you simply have to connect with the right people. While that sounds like clickbait, I’m here to tell you I have this tried-and-tested strategy that works every time!
The key concept of my marketing strategy is selling one to many. I saw an article recently that talked about sending exclusive offers to LinkedIn group owners. And I thought, “Well, that’s pretty much what I’ve done in the past.”
Let me explain.
A few years back, I was doing a seminar in Las Vegas, and I was looking for ways to attract more people to the event. What my team did was a highly unusual strategy for most marketers—this is where my selling-one-to-many advertising strategy begins.
First, we contacted several Meetup group owners. A Meetup group owner is someone who manages a group on sites like Meetup.com. Basically, people in Meetup groups gather together and see each other in person once a month or so to talk about shared interests.
Upon finding local Meetup group owners, we offered something interesting in exchange for promoting my seminar to their members. And the best part is—we also didn’t have to spend money to get it done.
Now, what we did was offer free tickets to come to the seminar if the group owners agreed to promote my event. That was a cool thing, right? The great news is it worked! A lot of people showed up to my seminar as a result.
We did the same thing with local Facebook group owners. We wanted a specific demographic because, like I said earlier, I was doing an event in Las Vegas. We contacted Facebook group owners within the area and utilized the same exact process used with the Meet up groups. So, we offered free admission to my event if they simply sent a particular message to their list or posted it in their Facebook groups.
Here’s another one. We went through Eventbrite, which is a site where people host events, invite others, and share events among friends, and started contacting people that were holding their own events around the time I was holding my seminar. We wanted them to promote our event alongside theirs.
An event host might have access to maybe 2,000 to 3,000 people. In some cases, people could even have access to 10,000 people. So, all I had to do was simply message them, introduce myself, and ask them if they would be willing to promote my event to their groups in exchange for free tickets to my seminar. It was that easy, and that cost next to nothing. I simply had to find those nearby event hosts and reach out to them.
With these three marketing steps alone, we successfully reached out to many people in Las Vegas that we couldn’t have possibly accessed before. This form of outbound marketing was a real game-changer.
Instead of trying to reach all those people individually, I used a clever shortcut that allowed me to access my target audiences with minimal effort and zero spending.
While, yes, you could run an ad on Google or various other platforms to reach your target market, and your ad will likely reach those people. But there are smarter, more effective, and less expensive ways to connect with your audience—I’m talking about people who are already collecting names and email addresses of prospective customers who could want your product or service.
So, why not leverage these local Meetup groups and get the word out effortlessly about your business? Why aren’t you actively reaching out to Meetup group owners on Meetup.com, Facebook, and LinkedIn?
In this article, the point I’m really trying to make is that, sometimes, no matter what kind of advertising you do, the advertising you’re doing is actually one to one, and that’s the worst kind of marketing you could possibly do.
Sure, your ads are likely reaching some people that recognize you or made a purchase from you before. However, many people who see your ads are those that have never heard of your company before. So, it’s your first chance to make an impression, and you have no relationship with them whatsoever. It takes time to build a relationship with your prospective customers and encourage brand loyalty.
Looking at the odds, it’s much better to promote your business through someone with an excellent reputation and credibility within their community—someone who will vouch for you and get their members to actually become interested in what you have to offer.
This referral system works because people get to know you through someone they trust, immediately increasing your trustworthiness meter.
Let’s take a look at exactly what I do.
I find someone within my industry with a Facebook group. Let’s say that group has 10,000 members. I can’t personally email all those 10,000 people. I may also not be able to post my event in that group, especially if there are stringent rules that classify promotions as spam. What I will do is contact the group owner and make an offer.
You can get creative and think of rewards that will incentivize group owners to promote your event. For example, you can propose an affiliate offer in which a group owner advertises your business in exchange for a referral commission. You can even straight up offer payment for promoting your event if you’d like.
Another great idea is a mutually beneficial arrangement where the group owner advertises your event to their group, and you promote their business to your own list. It’s a win-win situation, quite honestly.
Do you see my point? In many cases, this advertising method may cost you nothing, and it’s not that time-consuming either. All you have to do is help write a pre-made message that conveys exactly what you want to say to convince group owners to assist you.
And if you don’t want to do it yourself, you can hire someone to help you with this. They will look for relevant groups on different platforms and contact the owners on your behalf. They can narrow down relevant groups based on location and even contact people from all around the world if you want to expand your reach. When people start responding, that’s when you give your input on what to reply. It’s that simple.
The beauty of this “one to many” marketing strategy is that it doesn’t even really take any skill. Just go to Meetup.com, Facebook, Eventbrite, or anywhere else to find group owners and then make an offer.
I’d love to hear what your experience is with this method. It just takes a couple of minutes to type some keywords, identify relevant groups within your market, and reach out to the right people. Oh, I forgot to mention that some people will refuse, but others will agree! Try it—you’ve got nothing to lose. You’ll soon find yourself connecting with thousands of prospects who could be doing business with you!
