Is free advertising effective?

[fliply]

It depends. Some companies / sites offer 'paid' services for 'free'. Look out for special deals etc. or google search for this type of advertising.

Also, offline can do no damage at all. Publicise your site on all literature you send, your email signature and why not doodle on every beer mat in a pub?!?

[myseoblog]

Based on my own experience, free advertising is better than paid advertising... no losses whatsoever..

[shaila]

Originally Posted by otto101

Business cards can be effective to use for offline marketing.

Other Offline marketing that could be effective to your site are the following
Other promotional items. Pens, mouse pads, coffee mugs, baseball caps, and other such promotional items are great places to include a company website hyperlink.

Press releases. If you have a new product or service, create a "media" section for your website that outlines its details and promote the hyperlink via press release to various mass media.

[aloknath]

Hey have you heard of the Google adwords because this tool may help to find the keywords tool and then register for their Advertiser account which would be help you bring instant traffic to your site but in return you have to pay some fee according to the keywords you're bidding!

[arcel]

it still depends on how you use it...
if your advertisement looks spammy for sure no one would bother click it... the way you address it is the key to have an effective advertisement...

[aaronaskew]

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

Business cards are the most cheap and effective way to market your company off line.

Never leave home without business cards in your wallet or purse, you will be surprise how sucessful it is.

Do you do anything out of the ordinary with your buisness cards? I mean, other than just handing them to people curious about your site?

[bauger]

I dont free advertising is that effetive. I guess it all depends on what you are promoting.

Bruno

[singer]

You're right. Advertising for free could takes some time and less effective.

[firecat]

Thanks for this very comprehensive list. I can agree with you on most of it; however, when it comes to traditional marketing, I've always found that the local Yellow Pages, though overpriced IMO, has been the best way of advertising offline.

[joany]

if you know what you are doing for example help solve people's problems give before you get

[mailergirl]

Unless you're doing SEO on your own or doing business cards (that I'm assuming you design and print from your house) what constitutes as free advertising?

[joany]

Doing an internet business will either require money or time

To answer your question yes free advertising works but it will takes time so if you have time go for it.

[mailergirl]

Doing an internet business will either require money or time

To answer your question yes free advertising works but it will takes time so if you have time go for it.

Well, yeah, I guessed that it would take time. Marketing does... online or offline... but what constitutes as free? What makes it up (besides doing SEO or business cards on your own). Do you have any suggestions? Any examples?

[Domain CEO]

That's a great question. I used to be the head of Marketing at a major US company so here's my take on it.

1.) Any kind of promotion/marketing is good if you're reaching your target audience (person).

2.) I'm starting an internet yellow pages and while this seems like such a huge marketing expenditure... really I find it quite simple.

Why/How? well... we're spending money online for PPC and banners but I found the most effective "marketing tool" so far has been the small "business card" sized promotional card we pass out.

It says: "Free Yellow Pages Ad" on the front. Anytime I'm driving or walking, and see a contractor or dang near "ANYONE" who owns a business... I give them a "Free Listing Card".

So far, my conversion rate is:

People Who Signed up for a Free Lisiting: 4/10
People Who Purchased a Paid Listing: 2/10 or 2% conversion ratio.

That's not bad when: 1,000 business cards, full color, double-sided cost me $50.00, and each paid listing is $299.

Additionally, all the extra "free listings" are creating good "local content" on my site and the search engines (Google) love that!

Well... that was a long response.... but I type fast!

Until next time!

[LinkPopularity]

well, most have been said already, but I like to make a comment ... there seem to be a lot of people who think that whatever they do is "free"; that is such a huge mistake; you just have to calculate $ for your own time just as well, otherwise you're cheating yourself ... time is money!

[Tone]

Free advertising or marketing is the first thing you should be doing unless you have plenty of money to spare.

Contribute first, help people out at forums, ask questions. Social networking like Myspace, Facebook and Twitter can be used for free marketing, but it is a community, not marketer friendly, so you will need to make connections, be yourself and let people know what you are doing. Of course you can post links back to your website on those sites but they are more about socialising so you need to 'act' that way on them.

Another free marketing approach is Book Marking which allows you to add a lot of bookmarks to different social sites simultaniously.

And of course you can submit your website to the search engines [google, MSM, Yahoo].

I hope that helps a bit.

Regards

[SEO Service]

Originally Posted by Chatmaster

Something that I would like to emphasize is that marketing consist out of different strategies. The type of marketing you are in are the core indicator of how you should apply your marketing strategies. Free marketing strategies imo doesn't exist, because they take time to practice and time in my case is money.

As I said the type of business you are in will pretty much determine your priorities within your marketing strategies. But here are a few pointers.

SEO
SEO is very much consistent out of On-page and off-page factors. So initially you need to ensure that your basic site design is done correctly and that SE's will figure out what your website is all about. So on-page factors are a priority within your marketing strategy. The next step will be to ensure a flow of backlinks into your site and fresh content. Therefore you will need to dedicate at least 1-2 hours a day on off-page factors for SEO. Remember that each marketing techniques has it's own benefits and SEO has primarily the benefit of good conversions, targeted traffic and higher visitor loyalty. It does however take a little bit more time to get generis SEO to flow, but once it gets flowing it is worth it.

Online Advertising
Search Engine advertising, gives good quality visitors whilst you are waiting for your SEO to become effective. Banner ads on targetted sites can also leave you with a very good Cost per Acquisition ratio and is very good for building your brand and corporate identity.

Viral Marketing
Without jokes, this is one of the most powerful and longest lasting marketing strategies you can apply. Once again deciding your core objective influences the success that you can have with it, but I would look at sending out at least one campaign at least once a month.

Traditional marketing
Generally, traditional marketing has a very poor growth atm. There are simply to much choice for the consumer. There are hundreds of TV channels, thousands of magazines and newspapers and it is expensive. Not to mention that Internet ad revenue is on the up and conventional advertising is on the decline, this is in places like the US and Australia, there has been alot of research on this topic and a Google search should give you further information on this. HOWEVER, the basics needs to be done e.g. business cards and office administration should sent users to your website. The reason is simple, the web is a much easier place to convert and retain visitors as well as obtaining valuable info about them, something conventional marketing simply cannot do. Conventional marketing can be very effective still if your product is localised but your ROI target is normally increased and needs to be monitored frequently.

Editorial Marketing
Publishing of articles and Press releases needs at least 4 hours a week dedicated to it, and can be very effective if choose topics that are related to current events. It also helps with building of backlinks if you update content on your own website in conjunction. Special note, Email marketing is still very effective, if the database consist out of people that are interested in your product and did subscribe willingly to receive it.

Social Media Marketing
This is something you need to dedicate at least and hour or 2 on each day. It is extremely effective if done right.

Community marketing
The benefit with joining forums related to your product is that you stay current with trends and also get a chance to get popularity through your insight and knowledge within a certain product or service. However if not utilized correctly it can also hurt you, a mature personality is a requirement.

Referrals
Get a way of initiating a tell-a-friend campaign. People rather take notice if a friend suggested your service, if you somehow control what is being said about you, even better. Apply a bit of SMO to your site, you will never be sorry!

Finally, just take note that marketing any business take time. Newspaper reps will tell you that you need to advertise frequently for campaigns to be effective with them and that one time adverts often are unsuccessful. Marketing is not a quick thing, plan your strategies and stick to them, the ice always break for those that are patient.

Excellent answer. Thanks

[Tone]

Consistency is the key and it gets easier after a time. Do a bit every day to get good results.

[bharatseohl]

yes, advertising is little bit effect to our sites
use classified sites for the same

[kbeus21]

I have a friend that makes them. The only problem is I live in a small town where the economy is doing well. Since my websites are for making money online this town really doesn't have my targetted audience. I think they would be an excellent way of promotion though.