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Now is a good time to get ahead of your competitors, when many businesses are cutting costs by spending less on advertising and marketing. Marketing your small business, during the recession, does not mean you should start spending more money, it is only necessary to be more creative in the methods you adopt to attract new and repeat customers.

It makes no difference whether your small business is serving the local community, or if you are marketing to customers worldwide, you can only do so successfully if you have a promotional web page, a blog or a fully functioning website.

A blog is always useful for marketing online. One or more blogs, on topics related to your business, can be created in addition to your main business site. Each blog must be kept up to date, be entertaining and interactive.

Article marketing is one of the best methods to promote a business during the recession. It iscompletely free if you can write some informative articles, otherwise you will need to pay a freelance writer to do this for you.

Marketing articles must not be promotional, but should provide helpful information on a topic connected to your business. Whenever you submit to article directory sites, your name and link will appear in a resource box at the end of each article. In addition to being found in search results, your useful articles may be reproduced online, or distributed in newsletters, and always show your business link.

Social networks, bookmark and media sites are ideal for marketing your small business by driving more traffic to a blog or website. These sites can be used in addition to blogging, or as an alternative. If your is a local business, you can find people in your area on Facebook, or use YouTube to share videos about local events.

Twitter is a great marketing tool for any small business. You can gather more genuine followers by posting updates of interest, and by using some of the many free applications available. Twitter allows you to update as often as you want and interact with your followers, using no more than 140 characters in each message, which can include an abbreviated link to a blog post or webpage. Your Twitter profile can be customized and branded with a business logo.

Internet forums are another free marketing opportunity for small business. Be prepared to become active and post regularly in forums where you are allowed a signature link. Use only busy active forums, find ones relating to your locality or join a specialist forum, and be helpful to other forum users.

You do not have to pay out a lot of money for marketing your small business during the recession. You can easily build up a business online, network for free and gain a good reputation for your insight, helpfulness and knowledge, in forums and on social sites. Your small business will have nothing to lose from using free marketing methods, and as a result it can soon become a big success.

Learn more about this author, Ruth Belena.
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