by Bryan Ridenour

Created on: June 04, 2009   Last Updated: June 13, 2009

The business that you have nurtured with blood, sweat, and tears needs to grow to remain alive and well. Growth comes from advertisement. Unfortunately, in today's economy it may be difficult to continue to fund an advertising budget that can quickly be drained by a nice ad in a popular newspaper or magazine. Fortunately, there are ways that you can promote your business without spending a dime.

Word of Mouth

A famous author once said, "Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy." Talk your business up. You have made the investment to offer a service or product in which you believe. Tell others about the business and encourage your satisfied customers to brag about the quality of service and products that you offer. Word of mouth goes along way in advertising.

Network

Whether it be in line at the grocery store, walking your dog, or at the church fellowship dinner spend time getting to know people. Show genuine interest in their lives. If you need to, write down names and tidbits of what your conversation was about so that the next time you meet, that person is no longer a stranger. Self-promotion is much more effective when your number one goal is not self-promotion. Build relationships. Show people that you care. The next time that a need arises for your company's service or product, who will they call? The person who took the time to build a relationship. Put people before profit, and soon profit will be the natural outcome of putting people first.

Internet

There are sites on the internet that allow free advertising. Google free classifieds. Look for sites that promote businesses in your area. Craigslist is one such site that allows you to advertise for free and you can pick the region nearest you.

Radio and Newspaper

Call up your local radio station and inquire if they ever do live radio promos and offer your business as a place for them to have a live remote. This gives the radio station publicity in the community and it also gives you great free advertising as they will be saying we are broadcasting live from...

Also, take the opportunity of contacting your local newspaper. There may be times that writers from your paper are looking to highlight local businesses. Volunteer to be interviewed. It's a great way for the general public to learn more about you as an entrepreneur and your business goals and offerings.

Free Advertising

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