4) If you're an Internet user, spend some of your online time on business promotion.
Posting messages in forums (a.k.a. bulletin boards) is a great way to make your business known to people you would otherwise be unable to contact. You can't blatantly advertise your business on most forums, but you can show others that you're a knowledgeable, personable individual and promote your business through your signature file.
Getting people interested in your business and perhaps attracting new customers works best if you choose forums that are business-related (such as my Small Business: Canada forum) or directly related to your business's product or service.
The other caveat with choosing forums to post in is to check their level of activity; posting in a forum that doesn't have much traffic or regular activity isn't going to do much to promote your business.
5) Use buddy marketing to promote your business.
For example, if you send out brochures, you could include a leaflet and/or business card of another business, which had agreed to do the same for you. This gives you the chance to reach a whole new pool of potential customers.
You might also plan and carry out business promotions with complementary businesses. A pet store and a pet grooming business, for example, might use shared advertising, or run a contest together. This can considerably cut down the cost of business promotion, and allow each business to use promotion techniques that would be too expensive to implement alone.
6) Give out freebies as business promotion.
We're all familiar with hearing or reading advertisements that promise that the first 50 people to visit a particular store will receive a free (____). You fill in the blank. It could be anything from a red rose through an ice-cream cone! We're all familiar with this kind of spot promotion because it works. People love to receive things that are free.
Besides using freebies as business promotions, you can also use them regularly as customer "rewards". For example, I recently had a picture framed; the framer had attached a free picture hanger to the painting's wire, with a small card thanking me for my patronage. It's only a small thing, which certainly didn't cost him much, but as the customer, I appreciate not having to rummage through my home looking for a suitable hanger, and can't help thinking positively about the service he provides. What small, inexpensive things could you give out with your product or service that will get your customer thinking good thoughts about you? Combining business promotion with customer rewards is definitely a win-win situation.
Still looking for more low-cost business promotion ideas? Continue on to the next page, which discusses being a talk show guest and giving seminars as ways to effectively promote your business.
