Distro AI host interviews Mike Holden about No Budget Marketing

Alex Lieberman, one of the co-founder of Morning Brew, created an AI studio that, “lets you turn a conversation into social content in minutes.” I received Beta access and had the AI interview me about No Budget Marketing. Here’s our conversation:

Assistant: Welcome to Distro Studio! I'm Distro Agent, and today we're diving into no-budget marketing strategies that actually work. Let's explore how businesses can effectively market themselves without spending a dime. To kick things off, what inspired your focus on no-budget marketing solutions?

Mike Holden: A lot of times in my career, I was in situations where I didn't have access to a large budget, so this could have been when I was working for a non-profit or a company that was going through a tough time economically or I was working for a startup. But whatever the case, I found that throughout my career I've been in some situations where I haven't had large marketing budgets to work with

Assistant: It sounds like you've had plenty of firsthand experience navigating marketing with limited resources. Given those experiences, what do you think is the biggest misconception people have about marketing without a budget?

Mike Holden: I guess the biggest misconception really is that people think you can't do anything effective when you don't have a budget. But what I found is that if you can figure out ways to creatively promote your brand when you don't have a large budget then you can really crank things up once you do have a budget. Because when you don't have one, it forces you to approach things in a unique way, to learn new skills, to go out and find ways that other people are marketing their products without spending a lot of money or any money at all.

Assistant: Absolutely, it really pushes you to think outside the box and develop a resourceful mindset. Can you share a quick win or a specific tactic that any business owner could implement today, even without a budget?

Mike Holden: Yeah, sure. I'd say if you aren’t doing email marketing of some type to get started on that right away. Whatever real estate your brand has, whether that's a website, social media presence, if you have a physical location, whatever it is, think about all the ways that you can start collecting email addresses if you aren't doing it yet. Because once you have those, you're not at the mercy of any particular platform, like a social media channel that might go away.

Don't get me wrong, social media is great. And we can talk about all the ways you can use that to do grow your business without spending any money. But when you have an email address, it's incredibly powerful. You have a way to reach someone, not just in their stream where there are all sorts of distractions on social media, but in their inbox where at some point each day or multiple times a day, people go in and look at each item they're getting. And if they've kept good control of their inbox, and if it's not filled with tons of spam, it's a great place to stand out. And even if they have a busy inbox, you can come up with creative ways to jump out with a subject line, the way you use the from line and who that email is from by mixing that up, not always maybe hitting them from the same place.

For example, you could hit them with a company email, something from your brand, but you can then also sometimes send a message directly from the CEO or do other things to stand out in their inbox.

But yeah, I would definitely be focused on collecting email addresses. Even if you don't have plans to use them right now, start collecting those email addresses. Every day that goes by where people are visiting your website or your store, whatever it might be, and you're not collecting email addresses, you're missing a big opportunity.

Assistant: That's a solid piece of advice. Building an email list is definitely a powerful, low-cost strategy that provides direct access to your audience. Now, shifting gears a bit, can you share a success story of a business that really nailed their marketing without a budget? I'd love to hear about their strategy and the results they achieved.

Mike Holden: Great question. Real world examples there are definitely good. I'd say one from my past where I really had success with this was that I was working for a non-profit organization and we had a good amount of traffic to our website. And this was because of organic search. So none of this was coming in really through anything that was paid.

These were all people who were landing on our website through usually a Google search. So we knew we had a lot of traffic, especially to the front page of our website. And so we came up with a free trial version of our products and we put the sign-up for that right in the middle of the front page above the fold. So we had one section at the top of the page that was, you know, whatever the latest news was we had and then directly below that, before someone would have to scroll, we invited them to sign up for a free trial.

And we started generating about a hundred leads a week through this which was huge for a nonprofit and huge when you weren't spending any money. So, just from organic traffic landing on the website, we were getting 100 free leads a week.

And not only were they leads that were giving us their email address, but they were trying our product. So it was a huge win.

Assistant: That's an impressive example of maximizing organic traffic. Offering a free trial right on the front page is a great way to capture interest and build a relationship with potential supporters. With those 100 leads a week, what kind of impact did you see on the nonprofit's overall growth or mission?

Mike Holden: So, it really started to drive the number of people who were using the product. And what was great was that in 30 days, that's how long the free trial was. Actually, it might have been a two-week free trial, but it doesn't matter.

Whatever the length was, this is a number of years ago, people were able to use it, but they weren't able to complete what they needed to complete with the product. It gave them enough time that they could see whether it worked for them, but then this was something they were going to need to use for several months.

So, because it was an online certification program and this wasn't something you could just do quickly, it took a little time. People were coming in, trying it out, and then we were seeing a percentage of them that were then saying, “okay, this is something I'm really interested in. I like the way this course is going. I do want to continue and earn this certification.” And then they became a paying customer.

Assistant: That’s a fantastic way to convert trial users into paying customers, especially with a product that requires a longer commitment. It’s clear that by offering genuine value upfront, you were able to build trust and demonstrate the product’s worth, leading to those conversions. Now, shifting to the broader picture, what would you say is the most counterintuitive lesson you've learned about no-budget marketing?

Mike Holden: Can you clarify that a bit? I want to make sure I answer this correctly.

Assistant: Of course. What I mean is, what's a lesson or insight about no-budget marketing that might seem surprising or go against conventional wisdom? Something that you might not expect when you're first starting out.

Mike Holden: Yeah, sure. I think one thing to consider is that if you start off without a marketing budget, it doesn't mean that things need to change drastically when you do find yourself with some money to spend. And that doing some of these no-budget tactics, using some of these strategies, they might actually generate the initial revenue you need to then invest in some paid advertising for your company, which can then kind of put the things you've been doing on turbo.

For example, let's say you set up a landing page on your existing website that you're using to generate leads and you're driving people there organically, maybe by blogging and starting to get some SEO juice going around some terms that you want to be found on.

Then you start noticing, “Oh, I'm getting some leads from this. There aren't a lot, but there are some and they're legitimate leads. And I figured out a way to turn these leads into profitable customers.”

After you do that, then maybe you take some of that money and you invest it in some paid ads around some of the same terms that you're being found under organically so that you're now driving in some paid traffic. And then what you want to do, is you want to look at is whether that paid traffic is turning into customers that are also profitable for you just like the organic traffic was.

So just because you think you're doing no-budget marketing doesn't mean that you're going to stay there. You may find that no-budget marketing produces the revenue you need to then invest in your marketing to take things up a notch.

Assistant: That's a great point. No-budget strategies can indeed lay the groundwork for future investment and growth. When you see those early wins, it can be a real game-changer. Now, as we look towards the future, how do you see no-budget marketing evolving, especially with new platforms and technologies emerging?

Mike Holden: Yeah, I think that we've already seen a huge transition to video. For quite some time, a lot of the no-budget marketing approaches you might take would have been text-based, blogging, social media, email marketing. And I think we've seen what happened when people use platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram to take video and use that as a way to generate leads or nurture leads, or to educate your current customers further about the ways they can use your product.

And I think that, you know, this video revolution we've seen, it's just going to continue to evolve. It doesn't mean that we need to move away completely from text-based marketing, but there's just huge opportunity in video.

I think we've seen the same thing around audio, whether it's with podcasts, interviews like this one, or Spaces on X. We also saw it with Clubhouse when that was big. So there's been a move away from just text-based, no budget marketing for sure.

Assistant: Absolutely, video and audio have opened up so many new avenues for engaging with audiences in a more dynamic way. As we think about these trends, what's one free opportunity that you think businesses are currently missing out on in the no-budget marketing space?

Mike Holden: I think there are a lot of opportunities out there if you pick a social media platform and really focus on what are the most productive ways to grow your business there.

Right now, I think one of the big opportunities is on X, formerly Twitter. I don't know how long we're going to say that for, but X, formerly Twitter, Spaces are a huge opportunity there.

So if you can find someone in your organization, whether it's you or someone else who can kind of be the voice of your brand there, they can host Spaces and talk about different topics of interest.

It can be as simple as just explaining what your product is for people and answering frequently asked questions, or you can get into talking about a wide range of topics that all tie into your product. So maybe your Space isn't always about your product and isn't always salesy and just sort of like a marketing tactic.

You might want to really expand beyond that and use, whether it's a Space on X or any other sort of social media promotion you might do, you might want to get away from stuff that's just about you and your product and talk about other topics that are of interest to your audience and other people like them, because that's how you're going to draw in people and build trust.

You may have a product that does something for people and you could find a dozen things you can talk about that might tie into your product, but you won't actually be talking about your product. And this will help you to draw in those people that might then become leads.

Assistant: That's a valuable insight Broadening the conversation to include topics of interest around your product can really help in building trust and drawing in a wider audience. And Spaces on X, formerly Twitter, seems like a great, underutilized opportunity. Before we wrap up, what's one last piece of advice you'd give to someone starting their no-budget marketing journey today?

Mike Holden: So two things. One is get started. Don't wait. there'll be all sorts of reasons for you to want to keep planning or just tweak one more thing before you launch whatever it is to the world. But at some point you just have to ship it. So at some point you have to say, “Okay, this isn't quite what I want it to be. But I'm going to put it out there now, otherwise I will keep trying to perfect this thing and perhaps never launch it.”

At some point, you just have to get it out into the world because that's when you're really going to see whether what you have works. And it'll allow you to get feedback from people and make it better.

If you look back at a lot of products, or if you go... One example I give people is if you go to the very first videos some successful YouTube influencers created, they look nothing like they do today. The videos might be really basic or about completely different topics than where they are today. But at some point they decided, “I'm going to get started. I'm ready to put this out into the world.”

So, go into YouTube and sort someone's videos by oldest to newest and look at what they were producing a long time ago. At some point they decided to just get started.

And then the other thing, the second thing I would tell people is, don't stop once you get started, you know, you're gonna be discouraged at different points. You're gonna feel like whatever it is you're doing isn't working but you're not going to get there if you give up. And so commit to it.

It's okay to change, you know, shift gears. Like I said, a lot of YouTubers, they're creating videos now that look nothing like what they started with. It's okay to shift gears and it's okay to decide, “Okay, this current thing isn't working. I'm going to go and focus on this instead, or I'm going to shift my product.”

So many products start out as one thing and then become something totally different once a different market is identified or feedback comes in from those initial users. So start now and then don't stop. That's my advice.

Assistant: That's excellent advice: get started, and don't give up. It's crucial to embrace the learning process and be willing to adapt along the way. Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today. It's been a pleasure discussing no-budget marketing strategies with you.

Mike Holden: Thanks. I appreciate it. And people can find me on X at Mike Holden, M-I-K-E-H-O-L-D-E-N, or they can subscribe to my No Budget Marketing Newsletter. It's on Beehive. You can get there through my Twitter profile or just go to nobudget.beehiiv.com. And Beehiiv is spelled B-E-E-H-I-I-V. I'd love to connect with people and talk more about this stuff.

Assistant: Fantastic! I'm sure our listeners will benefit from following you and subscribing to your newsletter for more insights. Thanks again for joining us, and best of luck with your no-budget marketing endeavors!

Mike Holden: Thank you, I appreciate it.