Promoting a Shopify store without spending money can be challenging, but it’s certainly possible with some creativity and effort. In the opening paragraphs, I’ll provide a quick overview of some of the most effective free tactics for getting the word out about your Shopify business. These include leveraging social media, content marketing, email marketing, influencer collaborations, and search engine optimization. With persistence and consistency, these free promotion channels can help you build brand awareness and drive traffic to your online store.
Use social media
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and TikTok provide an opportunity to promote your products and build your brand community organically. Here are some tips for maximizing your Shopify promotion on social media:
Post engaging content consistently
Posting fresh, high-quality content at least once per day will help you stay top of mind with your followers and reach new audiences. Use photos, videos, Stories, Reels, and live video to showcase products, behind-the-scenes content, user-generated content, and lifestyle imagery.
Utilize hashtags
Research relevant hashtags for your brand and products to tap into larger conversations and get discovered by new users searching those hashtags. You can also create your own branded hashtag for customers to use.
Run contests and giveaways
Contests, giveaways, and sweepstakes are a great way to build followers and engagement. Require users to follow you, tag friends, share posts, etc. to enter. Offering discounts or free products as prizes will entice customers.
Collaborate with influencers
Work with relevant social media influencers in your niche to have them feature your products on their accounts. This exposes your brand to their pre-existing audience. Offer free products in exchange for posts and make sure influencers clearly disclose their partnership.
Advertise strategically
Once you build an engaged following, consider running low-cost social media ads to expand your reach. These can help get posts and products in front of interested target audiences. Make sure to track conversion metrics.
Retarget website visitors
Pixeling your website allows you to create Custom Audiences of site visitors and serve them ads across social networks to drive them back to make a purchase. This helps maximize your ad spend.
Focus on content marketing
Creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content is one of the best ways to organically attract and retain more customers. Here are some types of content to focus on:
Blog posts
Consistently publish blog posts that provide useful information, tips, and tutorials related to your products and industry. Optimize posts for SEO with keywords so people can find them via search engines. Promote blog content on social media.
Videos
Fun and informative videos engage audiences on social media as well as YouTube. Create videos that align with your products, like product demos, user-generated content, and behind-the-scenes footage.
Product guides/catalogs
Develop comprehensive guides and digital catalogs that showcase your product offerings. Share or promote them across marketing channels. Keep them updated with new products.
Infographics
Infographics condense information and data into quick, sharable visuals. Create infographics with stats and tips related to your niche and products.
Case studies
Curate case studies and testimonials from satisfied customers. With permission, share their photos and stories to build trust and social proof.
Leverage email marketing
Email marketing provides a direct line to your customer base to promote new products, offers, content, and more. Use these email tactics:
Send promotional emails
Send emails when you have sales, new arrivals, special offers, etc. Segment your list by past purchase behavior and preferences to send relevant offers.
Add email sign-up forms
Add email sign-up forms on your website and social channels. Offer a discount code or free gift to incentivize sign-ups. Import these leads into your email platform.
Share content updates
Send email updates when you publish new blog posts, videos, guides, etc. This engages subscribers and gets more traffic to your content.
Partner with other brands
Run co-promotions where you promote each other’s products/offers to your respective email lists. This expands your reach.
Leverage automation
Use automation tools to send behavioral-based emails. For example, if a customer abandons their cart, trigger an automated email reminder.
Partner with influencers
In addition to one-off collaborations on social media, consider developing longer-term partnerships with relevant influencers on an affiliate marketing basis.
Provide affiliate links
Give influencers a custom affiliate link or promo code for your brand. They earn a commission from any sales driven through that link at no extra cost to you.
Negotiate mutually beneficial deals
When negotiating influencer partnership terms, aim for deals that benefit both parties. Offer commission rates that make sense for the influencer’s audience size and perceived value.
Focus on nano and micro-influencers
Connect with influencers who may have smaller but highly engaged, niche audiences that align closely with your products and brand. Nano and micro-influencers often have greater conversion potential than those with millions of broad followers.
Develop long-term relationships
When you develop strong connections with influencers and offer mutual value, they will be more likely to continue promoting you over time to their audiences. Maintain these relationships through communication and sharing your brand updates.
Provide product samples or discounts
Send influencers free product samples or special discount codes for them and their communities. In exchange, require that they create branded or co-branded content featuring your products.
Optimize for search engines
Making your Shopify store friendly to search engines like Google can earn you more organic traffic and visibility in results. Follow these search engine optimization (SEO) tips:
Choose the right keywords
Do keyword research to find terms and phrases people search related to your products. Optimize your pages and content around these keywords.
Create product descriptions SEO
Write compelling, keyword-rich product descriptions optimized for conversions and SEO. Include relevant information people search for.
Produce SEO-focused blog content
Incorporate popular keywords into your blog content. Write long-form, in-depth posts that prove your expertise on those topics.
Get backlinks
Build high-quality backlinks pointing to your site from other pages to improve domain authority. Collaborate with other brands in your niche to exchange backlinks.
Optimize page elements for SEO
Ensure SEO best practices across titles, URLs, alt text, headings, meta descriptions, schema markup and more. This gives search engines more context.
Improve site speed
Fast site speed improves SEO rankings and user experience. Compress images, optimize code, use caching plugins, and upgrade to more robust hosting if needed.
Collaborate with other businesses
Strategic partnerships with complementary brands and businesses can expand your reach. Explore these types of collaborations:
Co-marketing partnerships
Team up with other brands to co-create content, co-host events or webinars, cross-promote offers or new releases, and more. This gives you access to their audiences.
Bundled product promotions
Offer deals where customers get discounts when purchasing products from multiple participating brands together. This incentivizes cross-promotion.
Giveaways
Give away each other’s products or services on your websites and social platforms. Or bundle giveaways across multiple brands. More exposure for everyone involved!
Hashtag collaborations
Brainstorm creative hashtag campaigns that multiple businesses can use to ride each other’s user-generated content momentum.
Joint press releases
Co-draft press releases announcing an exciting partnership or initiative to pitch media contacts together for extra coverage.
Shopify app collaborations
Partner with relevant Shopify app developers for co-promotions. Offer special bundled pricing or exclusive features for each other’s customers.
Attend and sponsor events
Events offer opportunities to get your brand in front of engaged audiences. Maximize your presence through:
Industry conferences
Identify major conferences related to your niche to exhibit, network, pass out samples/swag, and connect with influencers.
Local markets and pop-ups
Renting booth space at busy local markets, fairs and community events can introduce you to customers in your area.
Sponsorships
Sponsor relevant events in exchange for promotion, booth space, signage, and other branding visibility. Get involved with events that align with your target demographics.
Workshops or classes
Hosting free workshops or classes related to your industry establishes expertise. Promote them across your marketing channels to drive registrations.
Networking events
Attending or even organizing networking events for business owners allows you to connect directly with potential B2B partners and influencers.
galas
Getting involved as a sponsor or donor for galas held by charitable organizations boosts brand exposure and gives back.
How do you track the results of free marketing tactics?
It’s crucial to track performance data for your unpaid marketing efforts to know what’s working and optimize accordingly. Here are some analytics to monitor:
Social media insights
All social platforms provide free analytics on your followers, engagement, clicks, impressions, etc. Review these regularly.
UTM campaign tracking
Add UTM tags to links in your posts and emails. This reveals their traffic and conversion performance in Google Analytics.
Google Analytics goals
Set up goals in Analytics to see how your campaigns impact conversions like email sign-ups, purchases, downloads, etc.
Affiliate program reporting
Affiliate platforms offer extensive stats on sales, commissions, top affiliates and more to gauge partnership success.
Email marketing metrics
Email providers give data on open rate, click rate, conversions, list growth, unsubscribe rate, etc. Segment this data.
SEO performance
Monitor organic traffic growth, rankings for target keywords, and backlinks gained through SEO efforts.
Event tracking
Use promo codes, dedicated landing pages, surveys, and calls-to-action at events to quantify impact on leads and sales.
Surveys and interviews
Asking customers directly through surveys and interviews how they heard about your brand provides qualitative insights into what’s resonating.
What are some common free marketing mistakes to avoid?
When promoting your Shopify store for free, sidestep these common pitfalls:
Neglecting email list growth
Focus heavily on growing your email subscriber list. These loyal followers are most likely to engage long-term. Don’t just focus on quick sales.
Random, inconsistent posting
Stick to a structured social media calendar and content strategy. Random, inconsistent posting won’t build a loyal audience.
Aggressive sales language
Avoid coming off as pushy or salesy in your copy. Build relationships first and subtly weave in product benefits.
Partnering with any influencer
Vet influencers thoroughly to pick ones with engaged audiences actually interested in your niche or offerings. Relevance is key.
Ignoring non-followers
Don’t just preach to the choir. Look for opportunities to get your brand and content in front of completely new potential followers.
Neglecting SEO
You can’t completely ignore search engine optimization and expect to rank well or get found by buyers searching for related products.
Forgetting branding
Balance sales promotions with content focused on brand building, like behind-the-scenes looks, customer spotlights, etc.
Missing the metrics
Not tracking key metrics means you miss opportunities to double down on tactics that work and cut ones that don’t.
Conclusion
Promoting a Shopify store without paid advertising takes creativity and persistence, but countless free marketing channels make it achievable. By leveraging social media, savvy content, influencer and business partnerships, events, email marketing, and search engine optimization, you can build meaningful brand awareness and sales funnel growth over time. Avoid common pitfalls like inconsistent posting, ignoring SEO, and failing to track analytics. Most importantly, provide value for potential customers with helpful education and entertainment as you subtly market to them across channels. With a thoughtful and diligent approach, it’s completely possible to bootstrap your way to Shopify success without breaking the marketing budget.
