Let me share with you the six methods that have been highly successful for me.
First, let me explain. This is a good question but one that is hard to answer. There is no answer that fits all businesses in all situations!
First of all, I am assuming that by “Free Advertising” you mean free of cost in money. As I mentioned in a previous blog, free or low cost marketing or advertising usually have a high cost in time and other resources. There is a trade off!
There are many variables that could change what marketing methods you use. Are you marketing a product or service? What product or service you are selling? Are you selling business-to-business or business-to-consumer. Are you trying to sell to a local, national or world-wide market? What fits your personality?
Remember also, that what worked last year may not work this year.
Also, who are your potential clients? If you are working with seniors, the Internet, including Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In, may not be the best way to market to them. Whereas if your target market is in their 20’s, the Internet may be a viable way to contact them.
Another thing I have learned is that one marketing method almost always works better when combined with other marketing methods. For example, almost every method I have tried, either with my businesses or with client’s businesses, can double their effectiveness when combined with a website that is professionally built and looks professional and easy to navigate.
Over the past 13 years that I have been designing and building websites, I have constantly been doing market research, in some cases with focus groups with website visitors, to find out what items on a website help sales and what hurts sales. After this research, I have found that many websites have been built that actually handicap the business!
So, with that said, here are my top six marketing methods I have used over the past few years. I will briefly mention them in this post, but in future posts, I will spend much more time on how to perform each one in more detail.
1. Networking Meetings and Leads Groups. From personal experience, attending networking meetings and leads meetings work very well. I have also found that almost no matter what product or service you sell, you can benefit from networking groups.
My target market is business owners that are trying to increase sales. Most of the people who attend these kind of meetings are business owners trying to build their business. This is a very natural mix.
Your product does not have to be business related. If your target market is seniors that are ready for retirement centers, you will not find your target market at the meetings, but you might find someone who knows someone who has a relative that could use your services.
Most chamber of commerce host these networking meetings and many are free or just the cost of your lunch.
2. Blogging. Blogging must be done on a consistent basis. There have been times when I have been too busy doing other things I thought were more important, only to loose many of my readers and it was very hard to get them back.
I suggest a minimum of blogging once per week. But if you plan to post once a week, you MUST do it every week!
3. Online Directories. Online directories can bring in a lot of business, especially if you can find an industry specific directory.
Even though most directories may cost money, there are free ones out there. Also, those that charge, usually offer a basic listing for free.
4. Social Media such as Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In, and others. These can be very effective. But be sure that you do not openly try to advertise. The reason being is if you are perceived as always “selling”, people will tend to tune you out.
5. Viral marketing. Viral Marketing is an idea that spreads–and an idea that while it is spreading actually helps market your business or cause.
I have used this since 1974, although before the term “viral marketing” came about I called it “Richocet Marketing“.
This could be a product in which a self-building cycle occurs. Hotmail, for example, or YouTube. The more people use them, the more people see them. The more people see them, the more people use them.
The product or service must be something that excites people enough to tell others about it, who then tell others, and so on. I will use other examples in future blogs.
6. Website and SEO. Even though websites and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are not free, there are some very inexpensive alternatives.
Statistics show that businesses that have an effective website and use it properly have a much higher success with the other four areas, above.
SEO is not paid advertisement or pay-per-click… that is Search Engine Marketing (SEM). SEO is getting your website a natural placement high on the search engines result page, (SERP).
SEO is one of those things you CANNOT search online and learn how to do it for yourself. Search engines are changing constantly and things that may have worked just a few weeks ago may get you banned from the search engines today!
But most small businesses cannot afford to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars every month to get better rankings in the natural listing of the search engines.
That is why I have written SEO Master that does most of the work for a small business and explains in plain terms what must be done to your website to get those higher rankings.
And it only costs the same as a soda drink a day!
Remember, all these methods can take a lot of time, but little money. They also can work better when combined with other methods. In fact, I would suggest you use ALL 5 items above at the same time and cross market them!
Like I mentioned, I will spend time in future blogs to go in more details in each area plus other areas that did not make my top five areas.
Global Marketing Plus was started to help small businesses compete on the same level as large corporations but for a lot less expense.