I Want to Advertise My Home Business for Free: A Cheap and Easy Guide for How and Why to Spread the Word of You, Inc.

What many people in the home based business and MLM field must understand is the one truth that will raise your business to new heights if you embrace it, or crush your hopes of a life of seeing your child grow up knowing who his/her parents are. That one truth is this:

People don't join a company, at least not directly. They join YOU! They join you because they connect with you and trust you to guide them to what they need to succeed in their new entrepreneurial adventure. It is the one major part that cannot be duplicated, and at the same time is where all of your influence truly begins. As powerful as this truth is it's only one part of the equation.

There are people in the network marketing field that I have worked with personally that know this principle better than most. At the same time they are not leveraging all the free materials we have at our disposal thanks to the second part of the equation, the great blessing bestowed upon the business world known as high-speed internet.

Through this we have boatloads of free methods at our disposal to spread the word of You, Inc. such as video sites like YouTube and Viddler; social media sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter; and free blogs like Wordpress.com and Blogspot.com. The more of these methods you use and link to each other the better. Many, if not all, of these sites will allow you to automatically (or at least allow to to do manually with little effort) update to all your other avenues of marketing when you manually update just one area such as a blog.

I have seen the most successful leaders in this business set up these different methods to promote themselves using less personal sites like video sites and social media sites (since there's a limit as to how long your messages can be) and link them to their blog and/or personalized website which acts as a main hub for their marketing efforts for themselves and their business.

This next area may be the trickiest, but also the absolute most crucial aspect to master. That is you must freely give away messages (and sometimes products) that are highly valuable to people in and of themselves before you send them to buy your product. As a general rule of thumb, 80%+ should be value-based content, whereas 20% or less of your message informs people of your product or service you provide and where to get it. This is highly important since Google is not a fan of blatant sales pitches; any site that appears to be one instantly gets "slapped," meaning it gets knocked to the bottom of the search listings IF it's still on the listings at all.

There is an optional fourth understanding you may eventually want to put into action, but only when the income's right.

Eventually, when you start making money from your free advertising you may want to start seeking out paid methods to leverage your free marketing efforts. You may not find this necessary, as there are people in this industry that have made over $2,000,000 in one year using nothing but free advertising. That little statistic will more than likely keep you saying "I want to advertise my home business for free." But those who have taken the paid marketing plunge usually notice incredibly quick returns on their investment when utilized properly. Remember, just because you pay money for advertising doesn't mean it comes with a guarantee. Remember to treat this with as much, if not more, care as your free marketing efforts. Properly utilized, this can drastically improve your bottom line, but improper use will leave you feeling like you just got mugged.

These are the three main understandings that are necessary to bring together to begin a successful online business marketing campaign: The understanding that people connect with and join not a business or company, but you; the necessity to leverage as many free methods of marketing available to you online to be effective; and understanding that your advertising needs to give universal value to your target market before directing them to your product, regardless of what method of marketing you use. When the time and money are right, paid advertising can certainly springboard you to eyeballs that may not have otherwise seen what you have to offer.

But regardless of what methods you use to get your name out there, remember it's you and your information you are giving to people. In this day and age of the me-too home based business avalanche it is absolutely critical to stand out from the crowd and give a personal touch to your message.

The days of succeeding in business by being a nameless cookie-cutter automaton are long gone. Those who are willing to put their name and face on the line are the only type people trust; those are the only type most have ever really trusted, and you will be an elite member of the only type people will trust when you begin to share your personal message, share your personal story, and truly become the CEO of a new type of corporation; the one we will all come to know as You, Inc.