Marketing That WON’T Cost You an Arm and a Leg

Posted on 21. Aug, 2007 by DeanHunt in Online Marketing

In George Washington’s days, there were no cameras. One’s image was either sculpted or painted. Some paintings of George Washington showed him standing behind a desk with one arm behind his back while others showed both legs and both arms. Prices charged by painters were not based on how many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were to be painted. Arms and legs are “limbs,” therefore painting them would cost the buyer more. Hence the _expression. “Okay, but it’ll cost you an arm and a leg.”

When it comes to promoting a website it can often seem like you are paying an arm, a leg, and numerous internal organs as well.

So I have created a collection of numerous free promotional techniques that won’t cost you an arm and a leg:

1. Newspapers: If you don’t want to pay for a newspaper ad then try to find a major news story and connect your business to that story.

2. Distributing Pamphlets: You could print pamphlets with the required information about your website and distribute it among those who could actually benefit from it. You can often find companies that pay people to hand them out for you as well. It doesn’t cost much, and can be effective if done correctly.

3. Plaster your site name on everything: Put your url on your car, your wallet, your t-shirt, tatoo it onto your neck… you get the idea.

4. Sponsor Special Events: I know what you are thinking… sponsorship costs money. Well it generally does, but you can also sponsor with prizes. Even better sponsor with your companies products, you probably get them at trade price, so it won’t cost you much.

5. Join forums and blogs: Join related forums and dazzle them with your wit and knowledge.

6. Leave comments in blogs: Only do this with related blogs and blog posts that you are interested in, otherwise you would be spamming and spamming is bad m’kay.

7. Start Blogging: You can start a blog of your own for free at www.blogger.com, if your content is good then you can drive large amounts of traffic.

8. Affiliate Programs: Ok, you are asking again… “But this is not free, I have to pay for each sale”, the key part here is the “for each sale”, if you sell nothing, you pay nothing. It is the ultimate win/win.

9. Link trading: Remember when you used to swap football stickers at school? Well now you can trade links to websites. It is an easy way to get better rankings and extra traffic.

10. Ezine-article marketing: Submit your best content to e-zine article sites. Get links, get better rankings, make more money, buy private island. Easy!

11. Starts Contests: Contests and competitions are a great way of getting publicity.

12. Tell Friends and Colleagues: This is simple word of mouth publicity at its best. Easy and free.

13. Write press releases: This is again a very good way to gain popularity. Just make sure your story is interesting.

14. Add ‘Tell a friend’ or ‘Bookmark Us’ or ‘Set as Homepage’ script to your website.

15. Publish videos in Youtube.com: Remember when you were at the zoo and that monkey pooped on your head? Put that vid on Youtube and then put your url at the end.

16. Free Directory Submission: Submit your website in popular web directories like www.dmoz.com.

17. Give away freebies: The best things in life are free, so give away guides, reports, software, tips, badges, beer… whatever it takes.

There we go. 17 ways you can promote your site, and still have both arms and both legs intact.

Enjoy.