Quick Start Marketing Guide

2006-04-20 Word Count: 495 Category: Marketing

Before jumping in with both feet why not try some of these free or inexpensive marketing techniques that have proven time and time again to be effective.

1. Post in bulletin board forums and utilizing your signature
2. Exchange links with similar sites
3. Place flyers in laundry mats and on bulletin boards, especially in or around local colleges
4. Hand your business card out to at least three people everywhere you go. When dining, leave card with your tip.
5. Set up a MySpace account and start networking
6. Join Yahoo and MSN groups and start networking.
7. Participate in chat rooms and make sure your profile links to your site
8. Download Trillian (multi-platform communication tool) and place AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger & ICQ contact information on your web pages so people can contact you and you can build a nice contact list.
9. Start a blog using blogger or wordpress.com. Both are free. If you don't feel you have anything to say, you can just keep a log of your daily activities along with your successes and failures along the way. Seeing someone sharing realistic, unembellished information may be just what someone else needs to help them take that first step.
10. Start your own bulletin board. If you have your own hosting, you can host it yourself. If you don't have your own hosting or don't have the technical knowledge, there are free ones you can use, just do a search for "free bulletin board hosting".
11. Barter if you have something of value to offer. If you are great with graphics or writing ad copy, don't be afraid to ask for a banner placement on someone's site in exchange for your services.
12. Locate and set up as many free hosting accounts as you can. On each of these set up a content rich page or two (with advertising), and then link to your main site from each of these. You should be able to set up hundreds of these.
13. As you are surfing the internet, when you come across a site with a guest book or a blog with comments, be sure and let them know what you thought about their site or blog post. Post a link to your site and ask for their comments.
14. Put your domain on a t-shirt and follow the television news crews around everywhere they go and always be the person jumping up and down behind the reporter.

Ok, so the last one was just a joke but really it is an emphasize on getting exposure and thinking "outside the box". Every time you talk to someone, it's a chance to advertise your site. Everywhere you go, you should be leaving a trail of flyers and business cards. Everywhere you surf on the internet, you should be leaving a breadcrumb trail for others to follow back to your site.

The key to free and inexpensive marketing is, network, network, network and not be bashful about your business. If you become passionate about it, others will too.