The digital age is a small business’ dream come true. The overwhelming expenses of mail-in ads, flyers, and newspaper ads have long been taken over by more affordable and more effective ways to growth hack your small business to success. There are hundreds of possibilities when it comes to marketing your small business; these 4 are the most popular and typically the most effective.

1. Facebook Ads

Facebook is hands down the best place to advertise your business for a fraction of what it would normally cost to advertise through any other platform.  With an advertising budget of $1.00 per day, you can potentially reach up to 4000 prospects. Keep in mind that you need to establish your target audience first.  Facebook also helps you with that by letting you run a trial ad to see which demographic had the highest reaction rate. For instance, if your small business sells organic, vegan makeup, you’re going to target women in the age range of 20-40 who like pages related to veganism.

2. Set Yourself Apart

Let’s go back to the makeup example. While it is a niche product, there’s still plenty of competition out there from bigger companies who’ve been in business longer. You need to figure out how to differentiate yourself from them. Look at what they are and aren’t doing. You could start a YouTube Channel focused on giving tutorials on how to use the makeup for beginners and pros. Or brand yourself creatively by combining two unusual concepts. Organic vegan makeup for superhero fanatics or makeup with panda bears paws all over the labeling. Be creative.  One examples of a company that sets itself apart is Wegmans, a natural, organic retail food chain in the eastern part of the US. Wegmans hosts a once a week employee musician performance. A list is kept up rotating the employees and you can also view which employee is playing when if you’re a customer and want to see them. Own a small car dealership? Offer hot dogs or cookies and coffee for potential customers.

3. Post to Forums

Do a semi-indirect promotion of your products. For instance, let’s say you type in, “Best Editing Software” on google. Several different blog posts will come up with lists of different editing software, who they are tailored to, and so forth. Typically those blog posts will promote their own software first and then suggest other software as well. A more concrete example: Go to websites like Reddit and search for your category. Let’s say your business creates stuffed dinosaurs that you can record messages into. Well, you would want to search dinosaurs  and then contribute to the conversation and post a comment about how much you love this stuffed dinosaur you own, without being obvious that you own the company.

4. Email Marketing

If you don’t have an email list, your business will probably fail. Email marketing is the single best way to reach customers in return for high conversion rates. Research has shown that, on average, customers will visit your website or have contact with you 7 times before they buy. If they’re on your email list you have multiple chances to entice them by offering sales or simply expounding upon the benefits of your product or service.