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Free Advertising

Written by: Jorge Cruz

Article Overview: Advertising your company is all about convincing consumers that your product has a benefit that will enrich their lives or solve one of their perceived problems. It can’t just communicate your product’s benefits. Instead, those benefits must be directly relevant to your consumers. But, how do you go about doing that in a way that doesn’t wind up costing you an arm and a leg? Is there a way to engage in free advertising or launching promotions that are both effective and within your budget? Yes, there is. Read on to find out how.

Free Advertising

Advertising your company is all about convincing consumers that your product has a benefit that will enrich their lives or solve one of their perceived problems. It can’t just communicate your product’s benefits. Instead, those benefits must be directly relevant to your consumers. But, how do you go about doing that in a way that doesn’t wind up costing you an arm and a leg? Is there a way to engage in free advertising or launching promotions that are both effective and within your budget? Yes, there is. Read on to find out how.

First of all, one of the greatest ways to promote your company at no cost is to promote link exchanges with other website owners. Encourage other business owners outside of your direct competition to put your website link on their site in return for the same on yours. Get in touch with sites that are relevant to your business and compliment it well, but that also have a relatively high amount of traffic, or at least the same amount of traffic as you. Things like this that are mutually beneficial are great money savers.

Another great source for advertising at no cost is to create your own email newsletter. Encourage visitors to sign up when they come to your site. Also encourage them to provide feedback, and make sure you respond to their comments. This is a great way to encourage participation and interaction between you and your customers, and if they find your newsletter useful, will keep them coming back for more.

One of the best ways to gain free advertising is to send out regular press releases. Whenever there is something newsworthy going on within your company, send out a press release to a targeted list of media contacts. Do whatever you can to get your name and your company mentioned in a story. This kind of publicity is free, and is also sometimes worth more than paid advertising since consumers give news sources more credibility than the ads they usually see everywhere else. You won’t have much control over what is said about you, but more often than not that risk is worth the rewards.

One important thing to remember is that bigger is not always better. For instance, a 60 second commercial will not necessarily be twice as effective as a 30 second one. Indeed, in this case, the longer the ad, the higher the odds are that you will lose the consumer’s attention before it is even finished. Likewise, while some pay lots of money to place highly prominent and colourful ads in newspapers, studies have found that readers are more likely to notice an ad that is written as an editorial and look like actual stories in the paper.

With a little creativity, I have no doubt that anyone can find channels of free advertising all around them. Be persistent and think outside the box and you will surely be able to find new ways to reach audiences that won’t end up breaking your bank account.

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Article Tags: advertising, business owners, consumers, consumers, free advertising



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