The Secrets Of Free Advertising

It literally boggles the mind to consider the sheer number of opportunities available for obtaining free advertising for your products and/or services. There are so many proven ways to promote and market your wares, at little or no cost, that listing all of them here would be impractical. Just know that the possibilities are only limited by your own imagination, your determination, and your energy.

Listed below are just a few of the most effective techniques I use.

One of the most powerful ways I know and use to get free advertising is to write an article relative to your particular expertise, talent, skill, knowledge, or experience and submit it to all the publications and media channels that deal in the dissemination or publishing of that related subject matter or information.

Get the word out, en mas; become a tireless self-promoter and establish yourself as the expert in your field. Plain and simple: become your own publicity and sales promotions writer.

Make certain you "tag" everything you publish with a CTA (Call to Action), in the form of a quick note or P.S. listing your address for a catalog, store/dealership/franchise opportunity; web address for your website/newsletter/blog or just to get more information.

Another great technique is to become a guest on as many radio and television talk shows or interview type programs as possible. This is actually much easier to accomplish than you might think.

Start out by writing a letter to the producer of the program(s) that serve your market, and then follow up with an in-person visit or telephone call. Make sure, in your initial contact, to emphasize that your product or service would be of interest or value to the listeners or viewers of the program – stress the benefits like perhaps that 'it may even save them time and money'.

Another way of getting free or very inexpensive exposure includes posting advertising circulars on all the free bulletin boards in your area, especially in places like the coin-operated laundries, grocery stores, and beauty and barber shops.

Consider handing out circulars to all the shoppers in busy shopping centers and malls, especially on weekends.

You can also conscript your own children (if you have any) or enlist the aid of middle school, high school, and/or even college students in your area to hand out circulars door-to-door.

You will find that many publications will offer a contract for space. In this kind of arrangement, you send your ad to the publication, and they will hold on to it until they have some unsold ad-space they need to fill. At which time, they will insert your ad (the ad-price will almost always be one third or less of the regular price for that ad-space).

Keeping with this strategy, don't forget to check in with the suburban neighborhood newspapers, they might even turn out to be a hidden customer treasure.

Make sure you check all the publications that carry the kind of advertising you need. Many mail order publications that are just getting started offer unusually low rates to first-time advertisers; or they may offer a free-of-charge insertion of your ad when you pay for an order that runs for three or more issues; you may also be able to find some special seasonal ad space at greatly reduced rates as well.

Also, there are a variety of publications that may offer a "Per Inquiry" (PI) type of ad-space arrangement. This is where all orders go directly to the publication, the publication takes a commission from each order, then forwards the orders on to you for fulfillment.

If you publish any kind of catalog or ad sheet whatsoever, then you will definitely want to get in touch will all the other publishers in your market-space and query them about possibly exchanging advertising. In exchange for you running their ads in your publication, they agree to run your ad (of comparable size) in their publication.

Probably the best strategy to get tremendous exposure at the absolute lowest relative cost is when you advertise a free offer. There's nothing else in this world that beats the "Free Offer". Everybody loves free, right?

Just run an ad offering a free report or cheat sheet, or a "list of" that would be of interest to most people, especially in your market. Have anybody interested in your offer to send you a self-addressed stamped envelope to receive the report, and depending on the appeal you are able to generate for your report and the circulation of the publication in which your ad appears, you could easily be overwhelmed with responses!

The report (a simple one-page report) could invite the reader to send money for more information or to become a member, whatever your particular business model uses.

You could also, with a full page advertisement on the backside of the report, use it to promote your book or other product.

The aim here, of course, is to convert all these responses, or at least a large percentage of them, into sales. This is done via your "Call to Action", found in the full page ad on the back of the report, and in other offers, you include with the complete package you send back to them, which tells your reader what to do to get more information.

As I stated in the opening paragraph of this article, it's just simply a matter of unleashing your imagination and energy. If you do that, you have powerful forces working for you that can help you reach your goals. 

* TIP: At the same time you are having your return address printed on your marketing mail piece envelops, you can also have promotional ads relative to your product or service printed on the front or back of your envelopes.

Although the majority of this article's methods are not specifically directed to an online application, the conversion to online is really very simple. Instead of thinking "print publishers", think "website publishers", in terms of mailings of reports, use website landing/opt-in and download fulfillment pages instead.

To Your Success,
Christopher Gibson

P.S. I hope you find this information helpful. Thank you for reading. A Business doesn't have to be complicated, expensive, or time-consuming. We can show you a better way. CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE