Free Advertising Methods When Money Is Not Enough

Become en expert
Submit articles related to your business to the local paper, trade journals and professional organization’s newsletters. Choose a topic that reflects your expertise on the subject and make sure your business is mentioned.

Aim to be one of the great public speakers
Professional meeting planners are always looking for presenters and workshop leaders for conferences. Research contact names in the Directory of Meeting Planners or start with your local Chamber of Commerce or Rotary Club. If, like most people, you dread the thought of public speaking, join your local club; this is also a great way to meet potential customers. When you do get the opportunity to make a presentation, be sure to collect business cards for a drawing to win a book or other prize related to your business.

Reward Referrals
One of the best ways to get new customers is to enlist the help of your current ones. Offer a reward of free merchandise or services for any lead that turns into new business. If you publish a catalogue, include a card where customers can provide the name and address of someone else who might want to receive one. When you get a new customer from a referral, be sure to send the source a personalized thank you note along with their reward.

Set up a newsletter
It’s crucial to keep in touch with your current customers as well as potential ones, and what could be easier than sending out a regular newsletter? After you obtain permission from the recipients, you can describe new products, offer coupons and provide links to articles online your customers might be interested in reading. Keep it simple with pure text or include photos and other graphics

Start a blog or contribute to a forum
This can be a great way to drive traffic to your website and keep a conversation going with your customers. There are several free blogging sites to get you started, I recommend Blogger , WordPress or Tumblr . Here you should post any type of news, promotional messages or information related to your product or services. Another way to get your name out there is to contribute to online discussion groups (without making it obvious you’re advertising). Find the forums that relate to your business by typing in keywords at the top online group websites. I recommend Google , Yahoo groups. Be very careful when using forums to advertise. Many discourage users from bombarding discussions with their own links or promoting their business. Find a forum built for this type of promotion, otherwise you could lose credibility.

Sponsor and charity
Any time you do anything for a charity such as sponsoring an event or donating free materials, make sure the press knows about it ahead of time. They might send a reporter to cover the occasion, but if not, send them photos to publish afterwards

Social media Advertising
It is to no surprise that social media is playing a social role now in the business field due to it’s large database of active people. If businesses know how to use that power they can make millions with minimal efforts. Facebook, Google +, Twitter, Pinterest have large number of global population active during the day. With the right message, banners, keywords there is lot of power to exploit.
In this article we tried to give 7 free advertising methods but by no means these aren’t enough. If you don’t make a plan and a budget for advertising you’re in big trouble. This methods have their place and their contribution in the business advertising but without the plan and the budget your business is flying on autopilot.

Feel Free to comment to know more about free advertising methods.