Using Free Advertising to Market Your Business

I believe one of the most frequently asked questions I see and hear is "how can I market my business for free?" I also often see another form of this question "how can I market my business on a strict budget?"

Your words are your best marketing tool. And your words only cost you time. I would like to share two free marketing ideas, using only your words.

Are you currently writing articles? Wait, before you quit reading this article, you started reading because the title appealed to you, so invest a few more minutes and finish reading my thoughts on how you can use your words.

I strongly believe that every one of us knows something about something. Maybe you have children. Certainly you’ve found parenting tips through the years that may help others. Write about it. Every parenting article I’ve written has come from my experience as a mom. Maybe you’ve had struggles with in-laws or even your own parents trying to have too much input into your adult life. Write about it. I know many others are facing these same challenges.

Invest the time to read through the category lists on several article databases. Certainly of all those categories you can choose one or two and write about a topic within that category.

Once you write an article, there are thousands of places to submit that article. You can do a web search for "submit articles" and you'll find hundreds of places to submit them.

Different publishers do use different databases to find content for their newsletters. In addition, folks wanting to learn something also search through the databases.

I wrote an article on parenting about 10 years ago. I still, TODAY, get emails about that article. That article is still out on the internet for folks to learn from. Ten years is a lot of free advertising for one article. Imagine if you had 10 or even 100 articles out there.

The other form of free advertising that uses your words is message boards. There are thousands of message boards on the internet on every topic imaginable. Do a search for "parenting message boards" or "finance message boards", or "real estate message boards" etc. You’ll find thousands and thousands of message boards out there.

Join in those conversations. Share your thoughts. Share your ideas. Each time you post, include your name and your web address. I know some folks use long long signatures. I choose not to. I use my name and my web URL. Some message boards I belong to have 1000 members. What if only ¼ of those members read my words? That’s 250 people seeing my message and beginning to know me. I will tell you, many folks lurk on message boards, never posting, so many more people are seeing your message than you think. Over the years, I have received hundreds of emails from folks who say "I don’t post on the boards, but I saw your post…"

I know that the vast majority of folks who read this article will shrug off my advice and will continue looking for that magical free form of advertising that will bring in the sales. Free classifieds don’t work. Folks don’t read those boards. They are just pages and pages of ads. I’ve been in business since 1983 and I’ve NEVER met anyone who reads the free classified ads, not one person. However the few folks who take my advice, dive in and find some topics and begin writing will begin to see more and more visitors to their website and of those visitors, some will turn into sales.

About the author:
Audrey Okaneko has worked at home since 1983. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or visited at http://www.scrapping-made-simple.com