I found a post a few years back on Quora.com written by Noah Kagan. I’ve used it several times to launch mobile apps and help others launch mobile apps with no marketing budgets.
1. Create a product that you know for a fact someone would use. This might just be a simple as a product you would use or maybe you have a few users already enjoying it.
2. Manually reach out and connect with your first 1000 customers. More likely they are MORE important than the next 99,000 people you’ll get.
3. Search Reddit.com for similar /subreddit pages and post comments daily.
4. Search 10 keywords related to you on Google.com and leave comments on those related pages. Key here is to be smart about what you comment about. Don’t be a cheesy salesman and don’t always link back to your site. Only if the timing is right.
5. Give away free content or products to influencers. Read this
6. Guest Post on sites that are similar to yours. Technorati is a great resource to find which sites might be best for you. You can also ask your customers which sites they like and guest post on those. Start small.
7. Email existing users and ask them to refer you. Honestly hardly anyone does this and it works every time…if your product doesn’t suck.
8. Create your Target Marketing Sheet Devote about 3 hours of highly focused time to this task, but DEFINITELY do it. It works wonders and is a great way to keep track of your progress.
9. Leave video responses on (popular-related) YouTube Videos.
10. Search Facebook for “your niche + group” and start talking to these people. These are potential customers.
11. Raise your prices so you don’t need to get so many people.
12. Manually reach out to Twitter / Facebook followers of your competitors. Be smart here.
13. Look at new channels that have less competition (rules). Think Snapchat, Pinterest, and Instagram… to drive traffic.
14. Search LinkedIn for Groups that might be related or have users that would be interested in your product. Once accepted into the group, start Linking and Posting to that group. This is super easy and works great.
15. Evaluate doing mobile related marketing. It’s more affordable (less competition).
16. Get your site featured on some related blogs, news sites, etc. This is a bigger task and really depends on what you are needing. Read these strategies and do one of them.