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I have a web service and I want to start promoting it all over the Arab world with almost no budget, what's the best approach? |
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There are many different ways to promote your products for free or with no budget, including word of mouth, awareness sessions and gatherings with target audience and many more. But my main concern is that you want to have it promoted with no budget ALL OVER THE ARAB WORLD, which i think is a bit difficult or hard to reach UNLESS you go with a BARTER BASIS MODEL where you reach a point with different potential publishers to have your product promoted under certain agreement and you in return will be providing them with the services and products you have! This model works most of the time, but you should make sure to find publishers whom are interested in your products and would benefit out of them! For example; Umniah (GSM Operator in Jordan) was launched with almost no cost, compared to any other operator. Michael Dagher has managed to have the infrastructure of the company from Huawei in a barter deal and paid nothing for the infrastructure which costs a big chunk of any operator's launch cost! Look deeper into your product and think if there are any publishers that would be interested in using it, benefiting of it in order to promote it for you. Good luck mate :D Best, Firas |
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Salam, can i know more about the service? since approaches varies depend on target audience and geo-targeting and the product / service itself. regards KJ |
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It's tough to promote something with little or no budget, but it can be done. A lot depends on exactly what your startup does or what it produces. If you look at Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, Square, Blippy or any of the Silicon Valley startups that are making headlines all over the world, a lot of them have just spread without spending heavily on promotional campaigns. Develop good relationships with journalists, bloggers and influencers from the region. Engage with people on sites like this. Connect with the main tech sites for the region, and outside the region and let people there know about your product or service - show them demos - offer them free trials and hope that your product is good enough to merit an article or a blog posting. Go along to Arabnet and demo your product. Use Twitter and other similar services to cultivate a following. Engage with that following. Help them out if you can. Answer their questions and generally present you and your company in a postive light. Find someone who can write a decent press release and use that to connect with media organisations. Most of all - learn to walk before you can run. Don't target the whole region on day 1. Pick a sample location, city or country and work there for a short period of time. Learn from the mistakes you make there, and don't repeat them when you're promoting your company on a much bigger scale. Also, enjoy it! |
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If there's one thing I've learned about running a business, it's that you have to spend money to make money. Obviously, you want to make back your investment (and then some), so you need to get creative with your budget. Up and coming business owners should attempt to spend as little money as humanly possible, but they absolutely must get the job done -- and that's getting your message across to the general public and having them reciprocate. If you're on a budget, blog about your business as one person recommended. If you want to grab the attention of a more local audience, you can try using posters, postcards or a car wrap on the company vehicle. Good luck!!! |
