Top 10 ways to advertise your business for free


As a small business you will recognise the need to promote your business.

With a bit of creativity and some work on your part there are a number of ways to advertise your business for free.

1. Write a press release
Writing a press release is the best way to generate some free publicity. Basically, most journalists do not have much time to write stories, so if you can provide them with easily written text it becomes quite easy for them to publish it.

But be careful and don’t presume that your story will be interesting. The fact that you sell a product is not very interesting. Interesting stories are more likely to be human interest, or about a new business opening. Look inside a publication to see what sorts of stories that they publish and write your press release like one of these.

2. Build a page on Facebook
Facebook, at least for the time being offers the ability to build a free page.  Then you fans can “Like” your page and any updates that you make will appear in the timeline.  It seems likely that over time Facebook will offer less free stuff for businesses and start charging for it.

We have written an article on how to build a following on Facebook.

presentationmagazine.com/how-to-use-facebook-to-market-your-business-for-free-16032.htm

3. Use your car window
Make a poster and put it in the back window of your car. This could be just a simple web address for your business.

4. Add comments at the bottom of web postings
If you do a reasonable job of an answer then many sites will be quite happy to include a link back to your website.

5. Build a following on Twitter
Twitter is a great way to promote your business.  It is quick and simple to do.  You can put up a page and start following people.   You can search for people in the search box.

You also can schedule Tweets in advance so that you can plan a steady stream of marketing ideas.

6. Shop windows
If you are holding a local event, many shops will be quite happy to put up a small A4 poster in their window. Many websites have events pages that do not charge to promote an event.

This is just one of a number of ways that you can advertise a local business.  We have built a range of different ways into the following article

How to use facebook to advertise your business for free

7. Free directory websites
There are a number of websites that offer a free directory. These include

Yellow Pages
http://www.bttradespace.com/
http://www.kellysearch.co.uk/
http://www.freeindex.co.uk/
Touch local
Applegate
Blue boomerang

8. Link swapping
Link swapping has gone a bit out of fashion of late, but it can present a very useful way to get traffic to your website. The free willy-nilly swapping of links was very popular a few years ago, but in the right circumstances it can prove very popular. The best way to go about doing this is to find out who is linking in to your competitors’ websites and ask if they will link back to you.

To find out who is linking, go to Google and type in “link:competitor.com” (changing competitor.com for the website you want to check out).

9. Start blogging
It can be a bit time consuming, but if you start a blog on your website, using software like WordPress or Typepad you can generate more traffic.

10. Generate reference material for your website
Another useful way to bring people to your website is to write useful reference material such as free how to guides.
One company that is using this to great effect is the hospital company BUPA. They wrote a number of health factsheets that they claim now have one million people a month visiting. While this has taken them quite a bit of effort to generate it is one of the best examples of free advertising that I can think about. And much cheaper than advertising on TV.

Other ideas include
– Send in articles to magazines.
– Speak at conferences.

 

Published On: 2nd Aug 2012

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29 Comments
  1. billboards

    Anonymous 17 Nov at 10:45 pm
  2. web page

    Anonymous 17 Nov at 10:47 pm
  3. sandwich board

    Anonymous 17 Nov at 10:48 pm
  4. Place a car magnet sign on your garage door. When you are gone or have your vehicle parked inside your garage, your neighbors and people driving by can see your sign.

    Anonymous 23 Nov at 7:37 am
  5. go to local networking meetings, Yes ok sometimes these cost around £10 but there a great night out and get you involved in the local business community.

    Adam Faulkner- Staffordshire 3 Jan at 10:09 pm
  6. flash mob advertising, get a group of friends wearing the logo or slogan and do something noticeable in a crowded area.

    Anonymous 19 Jan at 11:08 am
  7. email marketing

    Anonymous 20 Jan at 6:06 pm
  8. Write articles and submit to ezines or regularly visit forums, makesure your signature has your website address.

    Anonymous 16 Feb at 5:31 pm
  9. Exchange Links with other websites, this will do wonders for your serps.

    Anonymous 16 Feb at 5:33 pm
  10. DROP CARDS – get some cheap business cards printed up. Put a few words to describe your business or what you offer and either your phone number or your website on it, then drop wherever you go…letterboxes (in countries that this is legal), On car windscreens, or hand directly to people you think could use your services. Also leave one on the bathroom bench when you use a public one – you never know who will pick that up.

    Anonymous 20 Mar at 10:38 am
  11. ITS SO NICE

    Anonymous 31 Mar at 12:40 am
  12. Make Use of BlueTooth
    Set your bluetooth mobile to display your website rather than your name. That way whenever you are in the vicinity of another bluetooth mobile, it will display on their handset.

    ideal income

    Anonymous 9 Apr at 12:39 am
  13. tell ppl u know about wht u do

    Anonymous 10 Apr at 10:59 pm
  14. put up leaflets where your target audience lives or in the area of your target audience

    Anonymous 10 Apr at 11:00 pm
  15. dont waste money on advertisement

    Anonymous 10 Apr at 11:01 pm
  16. creat door-knob hangers with yor biz name

    Anonymous 27 Apr at 9:04 pm
  17. Organise a charity event for the local community.

    MoonT 27 Jan at 9:39 pm
  18. Great advice,have just started up my own childrens cake baking parties and always looking for new ideas to advertise. I also do cakes for occasions,please visit my site,thank you

    Karen 26 Apr at 9:08 am
  19. I use Facebook but primarily through business cards

    Dannys 12 Jun at 9:26 am
  20. Be a specialist in your industry!

    Paul 25 Jun at 9:56 pm
  21. hi im new to all this and need as much help as poss lol i have started my own plastic building products company guttering, fascia boards, underground drainage, dry verge etc. im now trying to get into advertising it as can be a bit of a nightmare. thanks to all the info ive found on this site as its made it much easier to understand

    paul turner 3 Oct at 11:48 am
  22. leave business cards – simple and so very effective for word of mouth!

    fran 31 Dec at 9:29 am
  23. It is very useful article for me. Thanks

    Simon 22 May at 12:27 pm
  24. I started off going from door to door with business cards and brochures and even with small samples of my products.That was very effective and I always sold whatever I took to advertise at the end of the day.T shirts with logo of business is also great.
    Cheers.

    chris 23 May at 11:13 pm
  25. “dont waste money on advertisement” that is very wise advice 🙂 Why should you spend money on advertising – it’s pointless. If you advertise people will learn about you. When they learn about you, you’ll start making money. But who wants to make money anayways?! Smart people do;)

    Gareth Jones 28 May at 12:38 pm
  26. Organize sport / charity tournament and invite local media and established companies as sponsors for ( foods, drinks, etc ). They`ll not miss the opportunity to share it on their channels but this will include you as organizer .

    Jon Moore 28 Aug at 10:24 am
  27. Listing your business on Google, Yahoo and Yelp gives you great exposure and we’d say should be on top of your marketing plans.

    Dazznew 6 Nov at 6:52 pm
  28. Good site thanks.
    Useful information in simple format.

    Marie Taylor 11 Mar at 1:15 pm
  29. This helped me a lot, thanks for the direction. CTFO is my new business, and I’m ready to start enrolling New Associates

    Denise 12 Aug at 11:40 pm