Whenever I am asked for “free marketing ideas” – I shudder.
Not because there is anything wrong with free marketing – they are often the most effective kind.
And not because I mind giving free advice – I do it all the time, and enjoy it.
And certainly not because there’s anything wrong with “free” – it’s my favorite price.
The problem lies between the ears of the person asking for it. Usually, there is a negative situation that is promulgating their request [more specifically - lack of funds].
Bootstrap ideology is fun – and growing a business from the grassroots can be an exhilarating challenge.
But one of the main reasons that businesses fail is because they are under-capitalized. And that is what makes me cringe when I am asked for free marketing ideas.
So – if you’re under-capitalized, and you are reading this for free marketing ideas – I suggest you solve your capitalization issue before trying to expand your marketing efforts.
Now – for actual marketing ideas.
There are two over-arching systems that you can set up for free (or near free) marketing promotions [there's actually more, but there's no reason to write a full book today]:
1. Incentive-based referrals from existing clients.
2. Lead-generation using complimentary products.
From my experience, most people looking for free marketing ideas don’t have many (if any) existing clients. However, using existing clients as a platform for more business is one of the most effective ways to increase your marketing immediately.
The key is incentive and followup – you have to provide a strong incentive to your clients to get them to take an action (in this case, providing a referral). It’s called an ethical bribe – creating a “square deal” for your client in exchange for them putting you in touch with more potential business.
Example 1:
You own a restaurant. You offer each and every table that sits down a free appetizer for try a free subscription to your email newsletter. (ethical bribe # 1).
You then email an offer for a free entrée if they recommend 5 people whom they think would dig your restaurant. You then follow up via email, letting the recommended know that they have been referred by so-and-so, and that you’d like to offer them a free appetizer for trying out your restaurant.
Example 2:
You sell cellular phones. Whenever an existing client is buying a phone, you offer them a free upgrade (either to their plan, free text messages, whatever) in exchange for them referring 5 people who they know.
Then (while they are in the store, and getting their phone book changed over), you ask them who the 5 people that they would live to speak to more often but are not on your phone company’s service plan. Those are your 5 referrals – you then contact them with a special offer based on so-and-so’s recommendation (talk to Joe for your first 2 months free for switching service providers, get a free plan upgrade, etc).
This works well with existing clients.
“But what if I don’t have any any clients?” I hear a someone in the back of the room whine in a nasally, high-pitched voice.
Answer - FIND SOME.
Lucky for us, we live in a nation that has $1.7 TRILLION in annual discretionary income. There are plenty of people looking for what you have.
But to find new clients, you have to focus on generating a targeted lead.
Solution:
I prefer online lead generation. Because it’s easy.
Here’s how it works:
1. Pick a product that compliments yours (does not COMPETE – but compliments).
2. Sell it on Amazon, Craigslist, or Ebay - wherever.
3. Follow up with the lead with YOUR product.
That’s it!
Still struggling to get this? Perhaps some examples will help:
Example 1:
You sell a weight-loss program. Let’s say you’re the last person left selling a coaching program for the famed pineapple diet (you can do better than that!). You sell a book about Pineapples online.
You don’t care about making money with this book – in fact, you can even afford to take a hit with it, because you’re just trying to generate a real-time, targeted lead. Once you sell a copy of this book, you follow up with the client with your own Pineapple Fad-Diet Coaching Program.
Example 2:
You sell Hostas [rather - hosta bulbs]. You want to sell more. So you pick up a book on Hostas – sell it – follow up with the purchaser with offers for host bulbs, planters, additional info – etc.
Again – you don’t care if you make anything by reselling the book. You’re using the it as a tool to get people who are interested in what you have to offer. This is a fantastic way to conduct market-testing as well.
“But what about Web 2.0? I’ve heard you can get lots of customers by using Facebook and Youtube…” my pretend question-asker asks.
True statement! You CAN get lots of clients with those tools. To do that, you have to develop lead generation campaigns that lead with value, and they require building relationships and providing useful stuff to the people in those spaces.
And that takes work.
It’s fun, and very effective. But you gotta get setup with video equipment, or start writing, or start tweeting. And most small business owners just need to start selling something to make money, and Twitter (or Facebook) is not the place to conduct that type of conversation off the bat.
It’s easier to take someone that has already sold themselves on a niche, then move in and provide superior information, better service, and more valuable and actionable advice.
August 3rd, 2009 at 3:13 pm
This is a blog which practically shows us how to do marketing free of cost. The referral idea is well thought of strategy and the free goods in return of the referral looks very promising. The thought about the under capitalised business is very relevant and more information will be needed to guide people with a solution to this problem.
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Wow! Lots of great ideas in this post. It is so true that we are all starting from the ground up and the hardest part of starting an online business is finding the customers. Your ideas about networking with existing clients is great because word of mouth is a powerful tool in the marketing world. Great advice! Also, social networking is a powerful tool to use once you have a loyal following!
August 4th, 2009 at 3:54 am
Yes, i do actually think that the ideas given in the above examples can work and one can follow this advices to able to market his product online, and if it is really good, hwo knows? it may well become a great hit in the industry…….. I think that the authour had a personal experience by marketing something on the site.
August 4th, 2009 at 7:46 am
Great ideas to do a free marketing.I was wandering all around the web to get some good ideas like these.Really good techniques that should everyone can easily follow and get the target.
August 4th, 2009 at 11:24 am
@Raghu – gr8!
@D – I have had personal experiences with these techniques. I use them. Frequently.
@Aimily – That’s right, but key is getting the loyal following before you do all your marketing. Lot of business owners get it mixed up, and want to start marketing before they’ve built any personal loyalty.
August 5th, 2009 at 2:48 am
Its really nice for marketing ideas tose people in exact or relavant field.
Good experince for visit this site,Teaching and gatering to evaluate them.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:14 am
I appreciate your thought about the under capitalised business. Good work. It was very informative.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:06 am
I agree that using social networking sites like facebook and twitter can produce leads for your business, big or small. However, I would enter into this realm with caution simply because no one really wants to be friends with a spammer. Great article – love your insight!
August 5th, 2009 at 8:56 am
I had an idea of market things in online….. This will surely works for me ….
The idea of selling pineapple books online is good business developing fact… This blog mainly deals with free marketing,so that it will be useful for many marketers…….
August 5th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Hi guys well frankly saying it is a wonderful article.I dont know much about marketing,but i have heard about it.I thought marketing was a difficult job and after reading this article about marketing,i think it is a very easy job.Thanks for this site
August 5th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
To day many social net working sites like twitter,delicious,digg etc.., are available inorder to express and get some business ideas and these networks are available at free cost and the registration is also easy and secured and some of the ideas for free marketing – Be creative and use the web mostly,increase visibility in your community,participating in any of the online marketing groups, reward the existing customers and know their requirements and try to full fill it as earlier as possible.
August 5th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
in my career i saw so many techniques regarding to this marketing ideas. these are available to us to follow in our carrier. so, these ideas are good opportunities for us to impalement it.
August 5th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
free marketing is a idea of how to do marketing free of cost. it is a great idea for attracting the customers. through this idea we have to create the great demand for our product. there may be rise in the consumers for product. free marketing idea was mainly introduced for creating the consumerism in the society. there should be a great effort for free marketing& free marketing should not leads to losses in the business. it should be leads to profits
August 6th, 2009 at 2:56 am
The greatest tip ever is in your headline the word “Free”. Like any great marketer you say the word and move on without drawing too much attention. The Bootstraps are great too – especially when you give everybody Free Bootstraps to build their own markets. I shall be back to read again.
August 6th, 2009 at 3:00 am
Thanks for this idea.This will help lot of people to improve business .keep posting such a great ideas.All the best.
August 6th, 2009 at 4:42 am
nice. simple, easy and effective ways for marketing. very useful tips for who wants to sell and market the products. I think the idea of incentive and complementary will do their magic for sales. these are the better ideas to make the work easy. thanks for the post.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:30 am
This blog is mainly concentrating to give an idea about how to do the marketing at the free of cost. It is giving some hints to do a free marketing. Its giving a strong comment that Social Marketing is a powerful tool.
August 6th, 2009 at 6:33 am
wow, these are amazing ideas. In a society that is in such a touch and go state of mind that making sales can be wuite difficult even for the most seasoned veterans. grest tips!
August 6th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Superb ideas for free marketing which are really useful for beginners as well experienced persons in field of marketing. The best thing about blog is author seems to have lot of experience in marketing in field which is useful in real life.
August 7th, 2009 at 6:14 am
@Satya – bingo!
@Traveling Bags – I actually used the word “free” for SEO purposes. Turns out there are 118 people per day looking for free marketing ideas. Figured it was time to give ‘em something
August 7th, 2009 at 6:37 am
Good ideas for doing free marketing. All the techniques have been explained clearly with examples. definitely this will help for new marketers. thanks for sharing your nice ideas.
August 7th, 2009 at 6:53 am
This blog is very useful to person who want to know about marketing. And i knew lot of information about marketing from this. This free marketing provides lot of information for me. Thanks for this article.
August 7th, 2009 at 7:04 am
Great idea to improve business and to attract customers. It’s really an effective way of marketing. Post more ideas like this.All the best
August 7th, 2009 at 7:07 am
Very practical and easy to follow ideas that can yield result for free marketing. However, as have been pointed out, the most important issue of providing sufficient capital is to be arranged first before anything can be done for any business.
August 7th, 2009 at 7:55 am
Well, your tips will really help me in my online business.
I liked especially the part about lead generation.
Thank you very much for the time you take to explain this procedures to us complete newbies.
August 7th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Nice thoughts…..your idea of online lead generation is superb.Actually that is cost effective solution to reach wide market across demography.
you always keep things much straight which keeps me to visit the blog.
Thanks a lot.keep post more about marketing.
August 7th, 2009 at 9:57 am
best ideas that you have given to earn money through some of the social book marketing sites. It is great and is not only for earning money, it also improve our business
August 7th, 2009 at 9:58 am
I always wanted to do marketing on the internet free of cost.This blog is very informative and helpful.Thank you for the wonderful ideas.It is very simple and easy to do markting online with the help of your ideas.I appreciate it.
August 7th, 2009 at 10:18 am
This is give more ideas for free marketing,and i have more benefit for it.This site is good and easy understand give more details about actually work.Marketing is good work so i have known from this site.
August 7th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
I never would have thought to put together a so-called loss leader on ebay or Amazon. I think that\’s brilliant. I don\’t actually have anything to market, but I collect ideas for my future and I love that one.
August 7th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Well explained! The explanation for free marketing with examples makes the user to understand better. Incentive really works to motivate the people which is a ethical bribe. Author tried to provide his best to make the people understand in a simple way and I should say he achieved it.
August 8th, 2009 at 1:13 am
Its very nice to see such a article about marketing. The Bootstraps are great i liked it very much. Before reading this article i thought that marketing was a difficult job but now i learned how to do marketing. This will improve my business skill. Thank you very much
August 8th, 2009 at 3:25 am
your blog giving good idea.these are very helpful to market the products.you explained in detail way with examples.thanks for providing good information.
August 8th, 2009 at 4:13 am
Very innovative ideas and could have some impact over the market in full swing.This would have a greater improvement in future if at all they are followed though out the world.
August 8th, 2009 at 4:22 am
The Above ideas about Maketting is Great. I used that Ideas in lots of ways. People Have to see this and it will help them in all ways. Nice work done Thanks For that Ideas you given to me
August 8th, 2009 at 6:10 am
This is a wonderful site giving information on free marketing ideas. I have referred this to my friends who are looking for opportunities to earn without taking much of risk financially. Thanks a lot for the ideas and serving for the society.
August 8th, 2009 at 7:27 am
This is a blog which practically shows us how to do marketing free of cost. The referral idea is well thought of strategy and the free goods in return of the referral looks very promising. Some More Informations Needed
August 8th, 2009 at 9:03 am
These are great ideas, a little like making people think they need something and they just didn’t realize it! I would like to learn some more about the complementary product idea, that is really creative thinking. And ethical bribery, although it might sound almost like an oxymoron, I can see it working. Especially if there’s free stuff involved. Also, nowadays, word-of-mouth can actually have a global reach thanks to the Internet. The potential customer base is almost limitless.
August 8th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Great idea to improve business and to attract customers. It’s really an effective way of marketing. Post more ideas like this.All the best
August 8th, 2009 at 9:19 am
yeah, i am very amazing about your site descriptions and useful content.
This free marketing idea is very nice and clearly understandable so its very useful for me and my friends .” Good thing surly help some one ” this true on this site.
August 8th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
These are some really good thoughts. Selling pineapple books really hits home, at least for me. I know exactly what is meant in that. Good post. These are marketing ideas which don’t take a lot of effort, but reap great benefits.
August 9th, 2009 at 10:15 am
Like the above commentators, I too am very much impressed by the internet marketing ideas expressed here. Online lead generation is a great suggestion in today’s times. I loved the way it’s explained here how to use it, especially as the writer takes time enough to even give the examples for making the picture more clear and simple. This will surely prove to be helpful to many people. Great work, hope for more of such helpful posts in the future too. Thanks.
August 9th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
This blog helps people those who want to do marketing at free of cost. I am searching for this information for past three days but i couldn’t find anywhere.
August 9th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Thanks a ton for providing such valuable information.Its so true that when you step into the marketing field the biggest hurdle you have to face is capitalisation ,but if you think wisely and use some effective marketing skills then capitalisation should not be a issue.I really loved the examples you have provided,they will really benefit many people.
August 10th, 2009 at 4:17 am
I am really happy to know about the under capitalised marketing. There are lot of ideas to serve the society I really appreciate it. Nice job. Keep it up.
August 10th, 2009 at 6:46 am
I think the ideas given above are really great marketing ideas. They are very simple to understand and would definitely contribute in sales. Through promotions a lot of customers can be generated and this article is the best I have read. Also the author seems to be very experienced in marketing so these ideas are real gems.
August 10th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
The blog is very usefull.Keep it up.Congrates.Get your aim soon.
August 10th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Good blog post you have written.I want to expand my own business but i lack marketing and presentation skill seriously.Thanks for giving me good ideas.I guess i can apply few of them to my business too.
August 11th, 2009 at 3:22 am
Really worthy article. The marketing tips are very useful and creative to increase our skills in improving our business. It yields good benefits I have implemented these in my online business. I liked this and forwarded to my friends too.Thanks for the article
August 11th, 2009 at 6:28 am
Great marketing tips with excellent examples, I must say. I’m particularly very much impressed with the idea of “Lead-generation using complimentary products”. This is a new concept for me and it seems to me that if carried out properly, this idea can be quite effective for getting better sales results. Thanks for sharing the “free” tips
August 11th, 2009 at 8:23 am
I have learned a lot from reading just one of this blog post. It’s really logical and able to be done in reality. I hope there will be many experience people, who would like to share their idea like this.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Great entry – I’ve been looking for some advice just like this. It should definitely help me get started on my own financial endeavors.
August 12th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Great tips for marketing researshers and experince for to provide them.nice to sharing.Its a good reference site for freshers
August 12th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Here are a free marketing ideas for everyone – use your frontyard space, use your personal website, use your friends and family to promote your product.
August 12th, 2009 at 11:38 am
If I were a blossoming entreprenuer this feedback would be extremely helpful. As a consumer, I am somewhat apprehensive about giving the details of my personal contacts. But when an organization throws in some free stuff, I’m more likely to give up my friend’s details.
August 12th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I’m surprised you don’t mention the easiest one to do, since you even have it on your website – use a free report on your product or service, then offer it as a free download to anyone that expresses an interest in your item to get them to give you contact info.
August 12th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Can you please give more examples?
August 12th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
I think everybody is familiar with incentive-based referrals, even if it is from the customer point of view. On the other hand, lead-generation is a much bolder and innovative approach. Thanks for sharing!
August 13th, 2009 at 3:21 am
Superb and worth article with very good marketing tips along with excellent examples. Continue providing such useful tips. All the best
August 13th, 2009 at 4:08 am
I am really glad to see that this blogs explains the ideas of marketing in a very easy and understandable manner. Most attractive part of this blog for me is the ways to find prospective customers for different products. All the ways shown by the autors are really practical and worth trying. I feel that this is extremely useful blog especially for those who are just begining online marketing.
August 13th, 2009 at 7:11 am
@MikeChlanda – free reports / videos / DVD’s / whatever is a good idea if you have people to give it to. You need eyeballs in order to make that effective.
August 13th, 2009 at 7:24 am
This method is really cool to market our sites.I tried this and really got benefited by this process.This is one of the webs greatest challenge to market products.This is fascinating.
August 13th, 2009 at 7:25 am
Many people will be looking for free marketing ideas,even though they get free ideas that actually not works.I have read this marketing tips and i have implemented these tips and i found it really works. Here i learned about ethical bribe.Generally people won’t give marketing ideas because others will follow that get success.i am waiting for more tips like this and i thank for your contribution to the public.
August 13th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Great stuff you have here. So many ideas to help me start my own online business.
The free market is really what it is. It will free you to do things the way you want, how you want and when you want to. The big challenge, as you said in your blog, is finding customer, making yourself know and earning a reputation.
Thanks for a great blog.
August 13th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
It’s not the great advice given in this article that impresses me, it is how clear and efficiently it was written. I’m glad I found this blog and will be using it for future references.
August 13th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Very good article indeed. It illustrates well on how to build your client network.
August 14th, 2009 at 1:17 am
well explained. it was very informative.
October 13th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
i am every new at on line marketing their is a lot free information out
their think for good advice and grate article.
March 29th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Thank-you for the wonderful ideas that are offered in simple to understand language! ! I believe that if you are ethical with all that you do, it will pay you in many ways. You will stand out among the crowd and surely be remembered. In turn, this will keep customers coming back.
May 5th, 2010 at 7:20 am
Excellent ideas. I agree with the fact that most people starting an online business is under capitalized, so getting these tips are great.
I’ve seen a lot of tips on marketing that isn’t worth much, but these tactics sound great, I’m going to implement them right away.
Thanks Martin