Free Marketing - Good Tactics

Completely Free Marketing Tactics that Really Work... As Long as YOU Work, They'll Work!

What Makes a Good Free Marketing Tactic?

How Does Free Marketing Differ from Paid?

Elements of Successful Marketing Materials

The Stuff that DOESN'T Work

The Essential Assessment

The Pros and Cons of Do it Yourself Marketing

Good Tactics

Article Marketing
Directory Listings
Signature Lines
Event Participation
Link Trades
Ad Swaps
Bartering
Cross Promotion
Cooperation
Search Engine Listing
SEO
Viral Marketing
Opt-In Lists
Link Optimization
Print Downloads
Forum Participation
Blog Participation
Networking
Target Your Customer
Niching Your Business
Press Releases
Guest Appearances
Leveraging
Volunteering

Downloads

What Makes a Good Free Marketing Tactic?

Free marketing tactics have to measure up to the same standards that paid ones do. In other words, they have to accomplish the same end goal, which is, to make you more money.

Marketing accomplishes that goal in a wide variety of ways, and on many different time tables. But the end result has to be one that adds up in dollars and cents.

With free ads, you don't measure cost against return in the same way you do with paid ones, but you still have a cost in time. Therefore, any tactic that WORKS, and gives you a measurable result, may be worth your time. Later on, perhaps only those that give a higher return will be worth it, as your time becomes more valuable.

Nothing is truly free. There is always a cost. So you really need to insure that your marketing methods DO bring in a return that justifies the time.

Since many free marketing tactics are slow though, you may not be able to tell right away whether it IS going to justify itself. If I spend half an hour getting three or four backlinks for my site, I may not see a result for a few weeks. And then I'll see just a little bit. It won't affect my pagerank for another 3-5 months.

But if I get a few hits a month from it, that I can SEE, right away, then I can assume it will go on getting me those few hits a month. It won't be worth the half hour during the first month of returns, or perhaps even the second. But by the fifth or sixth month, I'm firmly in the black with it, and will stay there from then on, because good links are permanent.

And that is precisely what makes a good free marketing tactic. One that works hard for you, long after you quit working on IT.

Anything that only lasts an hour or two, or that quits as soon as you quit, is not going to be worth your time. You'll have to keep doing it to keep even a tiny return. Methods that go on working after a one time effort are the best ones because otherwise you won't be able to find enough hours in the day to generate enough business to be worth all the time you are spending promoting.

There are some people who say you cannot market effectively with no money invested. I completely disagree with them, and feel that you CAN market effectively, as long as you are willing to give TIME, until you can give money. And I typically never pay for ADS, I pay for supplies like paper, ink, and software instead.

Even a good free tactic takes a lot of work though. Don't expect it to be easy. You'll have to keep up the work even when you aren't getting anything yet but promises. You'll have to fit in more marketing when it is the last thing you feel like doing. You'll have to make calls when you'd rather be playing. You'll have to take a deep breath and face just one more person who probably isn't interested, but you have to face them anyway because there is a tiny chance that they might just be the one exception that you need to find.

I can promise you from experience though, that when you use the best tactics for your target market, and when you learn to do them well, the results may be slow, but they are immensely powerful. I tried to quit one line of business, but I have customers that won't let me, and I still get referrals because I did such a good job of building loyalty and trust in my clients.

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Disclaimer: We provide this site for informational purposes only, we are not legal or financial professionals. We make no guarantees of success of any kind. Success is dependent upon factors which we have no control over, including individual effort and undertstanding, national and local occurences, and other elements which cannot be predicted. Use this site at your own risk!

Updated August 20, 2007