How do I market a new business with free events, Facebook groups and conferences?

I posted free AI office hours in a few small, low-engagement Facebook groups for captive insurance agents. Minimal reach. It got 29 RSVPs. That's the pattern behind everything on this page: give something useful away to a specific group, in the places they already gather.

Why did the Facebook group post work?

Industry-specific framing. "AI office hours for insurance agents" beats "AI office hours" because the right people know it's for them. If small, quiet groups gave me 29, one large insurance agent group could plausibly give 100 to 200 with the same effort. That's my estimate, not a result yet. The next step is finding insiders in other verticals to co-host, so each industry gets its own version.

The other rule for groups: post value, never a pitch. Join the groups where your customers hang out and never mention that you're an agency. Post a video of something cool you just built with Claude. Don't say "hire me." Don't say "reach out." My partner says every time he posts one of those, people DM him asking to pay for help.

For effort versus payoff, I wouldn't be shocked if Facebook groups beat everything else. A meetup means planning and showing up. A group post takes minutes.

Do free local meetups help?

Yes, for name recognition and for meeting sharp people. I run a monthly AI meetup in Williamson County with almost no overhead. I put it on Luma, throw it in one or two Facebook groups, and show up at a coffee place with stand-up tables. No presentation. People just talk.

• The first one had five people, all smarter than me about AI. That group chat now runs 30 to 40 messages a day.
• The next had 13 or 14, and half weren't AI people at all.
• Posting twice in my neighborhood HOA group got about 15 people out on a Friday night. Another single post got 18.
• A typical month is 10 to 15 people. I've met a crazy smart lawyer and AI developer who now helps me with stuff.

"People constantly seeing your name, your events. It's free, but no effort."

When you're the one bringing people together, people look up to you. Everybody thinks there's something special about it. All I did was post the thing and show up. Almost nobody wants to organize, so the organizer instinctively gets respect and becomes the go-to person. When someone in town asks about AI, your name comes up.

It doesn't pay off instantly, which is why most people don't do it. It does pay off. A few tips if you're starting:

1. Start with online office hours. They're the easiest and lowest pressure. Once three, four or five people are coming and happy, move in person.
2. Pick a market of 200,000 to 400,000 people, where nobody else is organizing yet. Big cities are already crowded.
3. Go bi-weekly or monthly, at the same restaurant or coffee shop.
4. Don't pitch. Just say, "if anybody wants help with this, come find me." They will, and you can say, "yeah, I could do that for $2,000."

Ken Jee told me on my podcast that Luma features events in a city and lets you collect attendee emails. His tip, and a good one.

How should you run a business meetup?

Semi-organized. An open mixer where you hope people show up is too loose. A rigid networking club goes too far the other way, where you're in trouble for speaking four seconds too long. The middle ground I like:

• Name tags and a quick intro round.
• One 20-minute presentation on something owners want, like AI.
• A sponsor who gets a couple of minutes to speak, once you're drawing 40 or more people.
• Soft pitches only. Come to every meeting and never pay me for anything? Who cares.

Think of it as the chamber of commerce, but good: fun, casual, cheap or free, and full of the smart local owners. Most people either hard pitch, which drives attendees away, or never host anything because they're scared. The people who soft-pitch and still do the work are the ones who win.

Dinners work too. I helped a local media owner set up a dinner club for owners of $10 million to $20 million businesses, and sign-up leads cost a couple of dollars each. An Austin company ran curated founder dinners with VAs and used them as straight lead gen for its own services. The same model works for local business owners. I've also heard plenty of stories of people making multiple six figures from nothing but a Facebook group and in-person events.

How do you get a venue or sponsor to pay for the event?

Give away something that normally costs money, and get someone else to cover it. My pitch to a new business: I'm going to host an event for 50 families, and you let us all in for free.

A new indoor jungle gym needs people to know it exists. You run ads for them and bring 50 families. They get introduced to 50 families who may come back and pay. You get a cool free event for readers, plus content. No money changes hands.

• Paid-entry parks and play spaces. My guess is 80% of your readers have never been. Of the families who come, maybe 10% book a birthday party and 30% come back. Those are my guesses, not tracked numbers. Do it before they open or on a dead day.
• Slow nights. Ask a brewery that's dead on Wednesdays for 30% off for the people you invite.
• Free movies. Every family wants to skip spending $30 to $50 at the theater. Get the theater or a sponsor to cover it.
• Sponsors. Get a realtor or another local business to pay for it.

Cap it at the first 50 or 100. You don't want it to be too big of a success. I love this flywheel: other people pay for your giveaways because you show them off, and every event becomes photos and video for your brand.

What else can you give away?

• Training for introductions. I told the director of a local organization I'd train 20 of her people on AI for free in exchange for introductions to other business owners. Free office hours and in-person events had already generated inbound.
• A free offer in your newsletter. One mention of a free AI 101 training in my local newsletter got about 100 sign-ups. People are so wanting this stuff. I'll admit I hadn't delivered it yet when I talked about it, because I had too much going on. Don't do that part.
• A ramp to paid. For a friend selling AI setups at coworking spaces, I suggested doing the first one free, the second for $20, then charging. Start with a Facebook group and add a newsletter later, once it's working.

How do you do a conference booth on no budget?

I once had a free vendor booth at a state press association conference and no display materials three days out. A friend's tactic saved me:

1. Buy a cheap TV on the way there, $80 to $150.
2. Run an auto-rotating Google Slides or PowerPoint deck covering your products, so you're not turning a laptop around all day.
3. Build the deck with AI.
4. Raffle the TV at the end instead of shipping it home. My friend saw a software vendor do exactly that.

What ties these together?

Free and specific. Pick one group (insurance agents, local business owners, small-town newspaper publishers), give them something useful, and show up where they already gather.

Owning an audience makes all of it easier. I once looked at a networking-group franchise that charges a fee and royalties. With that model you still have to figure out how to get the word out. With a local media brand, you just announce a meetup and people show up. You control how people find the meeting. More on that in why a local media brand beats a newsletter alone.