Advertise for free – that’s perfect for me!

I saw a question on a forum the other day that reminded me of when I started my home business ten years ago. A guy wanted to advertise his business offline and he didn’t have much money, he was asking for suggestions.

When I started I was seriously broke, I thought I was going to lose my house. I found biz ops in an area that was often called ‘the poor man’s business’ and in an act of desperation I started my own home business.

I bought a couple of information products, but then I realized I couldn’t afford to buy enough stamps, envelopes, and photocopies to put together a post office big enough to earn anything. The act of purchasing the information products caused my details on mailing lists and biz op magazines and bulletin boards to appear in my mail.

Being a careful girl from Yorkshire, I realized that cheap magazine subscriptions would get me free monthly ads and bulletin boards were cheap enough to place my learning ads. I also saw a lot of free ad ads, so I used my few stamps and envelopes for any freebies I could get.

The free and cheap ads gave me more sales and follow-up sales than I would have gotten if I had spent my money on mail-order. They also taught me how to advertise and it wasn’t long before others copied my headlines.

Most importantly, I realized very quickly that getting my name out there would increase my sales. It’s a fact that people are more likely to buy from a name they know, and if you deal honestly, your good reputation will be built as your name gets known.

Within a few months, I launched my own quirky little bulletin board. As soon as the idea was finalized, I sent copies to all the editors of the magazine. That gave me more free publicity in the form of great reviews.

Then I published my own home business guide and got more amazing reviews from magazine editors and more free publicity. Buyers advertised it to me on commission, so it cost me nothing to promote their sales.

Six of the editors asked me to write regular articles for them and I decided to write monthly for the best magazine with the largest circulation. Guess what? I like to get free full page advertising instead of cash for my articles.

I wrote for that magazine for 18 months and then I stopped writing articles for my own magazine. Yes, I published a magazine and got a lot of free publicity; all paid for by my advertisers and subscribers.

At some point I started a brochure design service and since I was able to put ‘Designed by Patricia Jones and my phone number’ at the bottom of each brochure, I got more free publicity. It got to a point where a large percentage of business mailings and magazines in the UK had something with my name on it.

When I think back, I paid very little for my advertising during the 5 years I ran a mail order business. My creativity earned me a lot of free publicity, but it wouldn’t have happened to such an extent if I hadn’t sent copies of everything new I did for the magazine editors to review.

I reiterate that it is important to make your name known. Even if I was advertising a website, I always added my name to the ad and that created more interest. If you can write reasonably well and submit articles to magazines, it’s really worth it. If you have ideas for new products, act on them, they just might work and get you a lot of free publicity.

Now I’m doing it all over again on the internet, I bet it won’t cost me much now that I’ve found article marketing!

Seriously, everything I did offline can be emulated in one way or another online with patience and perseverance. You can get free ads on many sites on the internet and increase your link presence. Enter the forums and join the discussions.

You can publish your own eBooks at little or no cost. Instead of submitting articles to magazines, there are article directories. Article marketing is a great free way to boost your promotions.

I guess instead of brochures you could design websites, but to get the same duplication power, you’d need to have a great idea that people would want to promote.

For anyone who has ideas, the internet is a great place to try them out, and for little or no cost, try making the ideas a little different to help them get more attention. Whatever you do, he shouts from the rooftops: success is standing out from the crowd!