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Money-making Opportunities With Free Advertising

The costs of advertising these days are quite high, and sometimes beyond the reach of the start-up entrepreneur. For instance,

last year I advertised in my local giveaway paper and it cost me $395, and to make things worse, I didn't get one reply.

Advertising in newspapers is a bit of a waste of time unless you have a full or half page ad, as it is a scattergun approach. If

your ad is buried in the small print in the classified section, it will easily go unread by the vast majority of readers.

One way you can use newspapers for free advertising is to write a quality article about your chosen field of expertise and

submit it to all the papers and magazines which already published articles relating to that field. Tell them that you require no

payment for your article, merely an acknowledgement of your authorship and a link back to your website or a telephone number

where interested people can call you. Obviously your chosen media should be in some way related to what you have to offer. Have

a look at the kind of ads that they are publishing already and you will get some idea of whether that particular medium is right

for you.

Some media outlets will let you book standby space, where they will hold your article until they have an unused space. In these

cases the ad rates will be much lower than the standard rates. Just check with them that they have this policy.

As a variation on this theme, if you have the nerve, is to offer yourself as a guest speaker on radio or television interview

type programs. Just write a letter to the programme producer and explain why your particular subject will be interesting to the

program’s listening or viewing audience. Newspapers and other communication media are always looking for fresh content, and

provided your field of expertise is helpful or interesting enough they should welcome your suggestion.

Another way of getting free advertising is by going back to the old-fashioned method of posting notices and flyers on local

community notice boards. Just make sure that you are able to do this by checking with the rules for posting. Areas where you

might be able to post could be on the boards outside supermarkets, laundrettes and local businesses where people are sitting

around waiting, like bus stops, barbershops and beauty salons.

Don't discount the method of handing out flyers to shoppers at your local shopping centre, especially on weekends. If you don't

want to do this yourself, you can always hire a high school student to do it for you.

One thing you must always do with all your advertising is to offer something for nothing, a free report for instance.

Advertisers know that nothing beats giving away something for free to get a response to an ad. It could be something as simple

as inviting prospective customers to contact you for a catalogue of your products, a free trial of your product, or simply

further information.

Just use your own imagination, and I'm sure you could come up with some more innovative ways of cutting your advertising bill.


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