20 Free Marketing Ideas – Blog Series Recap

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It’s been a little more than 20 weeks since I started the Free Marketing Ideas Series here. I hope that everyone has had a chance to follow along and has picked up a couple key tips that can help your business grow. This marks the end of this weekly blog series, next week another will take its place. And if we’re lucky, it will have just as strong a run as this one did.

For those of you just tuning in, here is a recap of all 20 Free Marketing Ideas:

  1. Start Blogging
  2. Create a Facebook Page
  3. Create a Twitter Account
  4. Start a Press List
  5. Add Your Business to Yelp
  6. Start Producing Videos
  7. Develop a Referral Program
  8. Start an Email List
  9. Host a Contest
  10. Alt Tags and Meta Data
  11. Keywords and Copy
  12. Offer Free Trials
  13. Goodwill
  14. Blogger Outreach
  15. Create a Loyalty Plan
  16. Groupon and Living Social
  17. Free Advertising Offers
  18. Write Articles
  19. Make Deals
  20. Promotions

Free Marketing Ideas Part 20 – Promotions

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Welcome to the latest edition of my new weekly blog series, “Free Marketing Ideas”. Each week I will identify and explain a simple marketing idea that you can employ at low or no cost. Last week’s topic was Make Deals.

This Week’s Topic = Promotions

Pricing and Promotion are two of the 4 P’s of Marketing that are taught in most intro-level marketing classes. The others are Product and Placement.

The price that you set for your products or services is a tool that marketers can use to distinguish themselves from the competition, set customer expectations, affect demand, and control profits. And promotions are special offers that you make in order to drum up more business.

Most promotions don’t have to cost you anything in terms of real dollars. It takes time to dream up and implement them. If you’re offering discounts than there is a cost to you related to lower margins. But offering a promotion is a way to increase sales without spending a lot of money on advertising.

I could spend days listing all of the different kinds of promotions you can try, but let’s stick to a couple simple ones. The first are basic discounts, offering lower prices on one or more products for a limited time. The second is a free shipping offer, which is a very effective way to increase your conversion rates in an online sales environment.

The third is BOGO (buy one, get one free) which will have a similar impact on sales to a 50% off special. The fourth is a bulk sale discount, a discount on orders of a certain size aimed at increasing the value of each order.

A fifth is a free trial or free sample, that allows people to try your product or service before they buy it. You can also drive more sales with financing plans that require a lower up front cost, product add ons, the promise of discounts on future items, etc.

The marketing team should always be planning promotions that will boost sales and revenue at key points throughout the year. Creativity is a part of promotion planning. Some will work, others will fail. The key is to always be thinking, planning, and executing.

Share your thoughts on this idea, and other free marketing ideas in the comments section below and keep the conversation going!

Free Marketing Ideas Part 19 – Make Deals

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Welcome to the latest edition of my new weekly blog series, “Free Marketing Ideas”. Each week I will identify and explain a simple marketing idea that you can employ at low or no cost. Last week’s topic was Write Articles.

This Week’s Topic = Make Deals

Are there other companies, organizations, associations, and publications that reach the same audience as you? Do they reach people that you don’t?

The answer should be yes for everyone. So we start with that understanding.

Now, would it benefit you if you could reach their audience?

Again, the answer is yes. That is what marketing is all about.

So what I recommend is you pick up the phone and get in contact with those organizations. The odds are, there is something that you can do to reach their audience. And it does not always have to be paid advertising.

Sponsorships and partnerships between companies that are mutually beneficial offer you a great chance to get the same exposure you would get with advertising, without the cost. The cost instead is whatever you offer up in exchange. It’s like a marketing bartering system.

For example, you might sponsor an event or contest by providing resources or product. In exchange, the host company would share your brand and perhaps a branded message with attendees or participants.

In order to make this practice work, you are going to have to be proactive. You will need to pick up the phone and get in touch with people at the companies you would like to partner with. And since what you’re proposing is not a standard advertising deal, it will take a little back and forth negotiation. But chances are, if you come up with a mutually beneficial proposal, the right person on the other end will be interested.

For more, check out this example of cooperative marketing from Dominos.

Share your thoughts on this idea, and other free marketing ideas in the comments section below and keep the conversation going!

Free Marketing Ideas Part 18 – Write Articles

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Welcome to the latest edition of my new weekly blog series, “Free Marketing Ideas”. Each week I will identify and explain a simple marketing idea that you can employ at low or no cost. Last week’s topic was Free Advertising Offers.

This Week’s Topic = Write Articles

Writing articles does not sound like a marketing plan to anyone. But it fits nicely into our free marketing ideas blog series. And that is because it is both free and effective.

When you write an article on a subject related to your business, you are engaging in content marketing. You can submit that article to free article posting sites like ehow, ezinearticles, Technorati, etc. Or you can post the article on your own website and share it across the various social networks that you use, such as Twitter and Facebook. You can even submit it to bloggers as a guest blog.

Here is what publishing an article does for you. First, any inbound links from that article (or to that article if it is posted on your own site) will help your SEO. It will help people find you when they are looking for you. Second, it will help identify you or your company as an expert on a given topic. This adds credibility to your brand that you cannot get through advertising.

When you make writing articles a regular part of your marketing, you are growing your brand’s reach. And all it takes is the time to write the articles. If you don’t have the time, hire a writer and pay per article. Of course this makes it less of a “free” marketing idea, but it is still an inexpensive way to boost your SEO and build your brand online.

The power of the internet and social media is that anyone with something to say has a way to say it. And your brand has something to say. So say it.

Share your thoughts on this idea, and other free marketing ideas in the comments section below and keep the conversation going!

Free Marketing Ideas Part 17 – Free Advertising Offers

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Welcome to the latest edition of my new weekly blog series, “Free Marketing Ideas”. Each week I will identify and explain a simple marketing idea that you can employ at low or no cost. Last week’s topic was Groupon and Living Social.

This Week’s Topic = Free Advertising Offers

You are a potential advertiser. If you’re not already spending money on paid advertising, that is how the companies that profit off of paid advertising see you.

And because they see you as a potential advertiser, aka customer of theirs, they will make an effort to win your business. Companies like Facebook, Google, Bing, and others want you to spend money advertising through their medium, and they will entice you with free trials. So take advantage of them.

Google and Facebook frequently make these free trial offers, by giving you what amounts to free money to spend. They want you to spend this money, find that it creates new customers for you, and then continue to spend your own money with success. And they know that if the money you spend does not produce any returns, you will likely not spend money with them. So they’re willing to help you make the advertising work.

Take advantage of this opportunity by signing up for their services. Create an account, but don’t necessarily start spending right away. They may contact you, but if they don’t you should not hesitate to contact them first. Let them know you are interested in testing out their advertising platforms, but that you are not completely sure it will work for you. You can even go so far as to ask for help and a free trial. Big companies like these won’t hesitate to work with you, because they are chock full of resources and eager to win your business.

But it’s not only the big companies that have these kinds of offers. You just have to keep your eyes open. Chances are, if there is an advertising opportunity that interests you, you can test it at a discount, if not for free.

Share your thoughts on this idea, and other free marketing ideas in the comments section below and keep the conversation going!