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Taking advantage of free advertising |
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Written by Alex Wu
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Tuesday, 28 April 2009 03:38 |
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Establishing an advertising budget for a new or existing business is very challenging. Unless you have the money to spend on tracking your bounce back, you are not really sure how it is working for you. Not all businesses can afford real tracking and other than putting a coupon in with your ad, you have no real idea to know if it is effective or not.
by AlexWu
Establishing an advertising budget for a new or existing business is very challenging. Unless you have the money to spend on tracking your bounce back, you are not really sure how it is working for you. Not all businesses can afford real tracking and other than putting a coupon in with your ad, you have no real idea to know if it is effective or not.
You can have the best business idea in the world but if people don't know about it, it is a little hard to make money. The key is to get your name out there without breaking your bank. This even goes for a well established business. You can never lie dormant but with the economy being the way it is, you are also trying to save every penny that you can.
There are plenty of free outlets for you to advertise in and you are going to take advantage of every one of them. Each and every one of them are 100% free, all they take is a little time on your part.
The first avenue on the net is to use free classified ads. There are literally hundreds of thousands of sites that you can post an ad on to sell your product or service. You are obviously not going to be able to put something up on all of them but you need to get to as many as possible that cater to your niche. A simple search engine inquiry will give you a very good idea of what sites are the best ones to go.
After you get done splashing your business all over the classified ads, you are going to continue right on to the social networks. I am not talking about dating sites, but all of these social sites that allow you to post your life on your own webpage. If you think this is nuts go on one of them and start rooting around. You will find business after business with a page or a lens. Everyone is cashing in on the individuals that spend countless hours on these sites surfing.
The last thing you are going to do is to start your own website. If you don't have the money to have someone develop it for you, you can start by using a blog. It will serve the same purpose initially and that purpose it to generate hits. People search for stuff all the time on the web and you just never know when your site will pop up.
Once you have your own site up you will also offer link exchanges with other bloggers and web sites. Do some searches in forums and blog sites and see who is popular. These sites don't necessarily have to be affiliated with what you are selling, actually for this, you would probably prefer that they were not. You are just trying to let people know about your business and this is a great way to do it.
That is something that will also work in your local business community, especially if you are in an area that is heavily populated with private businesses instead of the corporate bullies. A lot of times you will have one area that is saturated with all different types of shops. Most people will spend money on a mental trigger or impulse buy. If they are checking out at one store and then see a flyer for your store for something else they need, don't you think they will trust the judgement of the store owner that they are currently buying from. Again, business you probably would have never had for merely letting each other advertise in each others place of business.
Information:
Alex Wu runs a free advertising website that lets people post their ads, build profiles, and connect. He hopes to create an active environment for businesses place their free ads. |
