The internet is a fantastic place to promote your skills and accomplishments. You can pay a large sum of money by coming up with banner ad or pay per click plans to get the word out or you can go the budget way and market yourself smartly without spending nary a dime. Ill leave the money plans for another article, instead lets take a look at smart ways for you to promote you or your product online for little or no money!
Who said you have to have a marketing budget to promote yourself Well, many companies do, but they are in the business to sell you something [namely, their marketing plan]. If you have the money to spend on marketing then go for it. If not, then you must examine cost effective ways to get your name out there. Here are some of my personal favorites:
Write Articles Yes, just as I am writing this article in hope that you are reading it, you can do the same and submit your missives to leading article directories. A well written article of medium length [500-750 words] can go a long way in attracting interest by others. If you are new to the game, write the article and give it to a friend for their review and critique. Once you make your changes, find article directories you can join and start submitting. Make sure your resource box the information at the end of the article effectively pitches your product or you personally. Enjoy the resultant [and free!] links back to your site. Submit on a regular basis and you will reap the added traffic to your site resulting in more business for you.
Join Forums -- I run several message board communities and with my two largest ones -- the Corporate Flight Attendant Community and the Aviation Employment Board -- I permit members to add a link within their signature to their personal or business website. Many of my threads are indexed by Google and picked up by people all over the world. Thus, the right person at the right time can click on a thread and see valuable links to other sites of interest. Not every forum manager permits this practice, however. I guess I am just a nick guy! [wink]
Post on Craigs List -- Craig Newmark started his list more than a decade ago to serve the San Francisco community. Years later his site is still going strong with well over one hundred cities across the globe featured. People from Atlanta to Auckland and from Zurich to Zimbabwe now have access to a site that allows them to pitch their products, display their resumes, or sell their very souls. The site is still free unless you are posting a job opportunity or real estate information under a few, select cities.
Your Website -- You do have a website, right Oddly in this day and age I am meeting people who do not. I hear all kinds of excuses: it is too expensive, too time consuming, too difficult, etc. Heck, if you are going to play the internet you must be properly equipped to participate. Quit making excusesfind a way to get online and do it today! At the very least your DSL account probably provides a page or two where you can design your personal page and upload it to the internet. Oh, you are still using dial up Yikes!
As with any marketing campaign you must stay on top of it at all times. What I mean is this: however you choose to proceed, you must continually monitor and adjust your plan to maximize its effectiveness. No going on auto-pilot here: you must take charge of what you are doing to reap the rewards. If you do, you can gain a lot of exposure and work without expending a huge amount of money.
Copyright 2005 -- Matthew Keegan is The Article Writer who writes on a variety of topics including: advocacy, automobiles, aviation, business, Christian themes, family, news, product reviews, travel, writing, and more. Samples from his portfolio are available right online.
If I was a fortune-teller and you just walked in my door I would tell you this:
I see you still seek the dream of earning money in your sleep. Enough to give you the time and freedom to do what you want, when you want and without the restriction of having to choose second-best.
Dont worry, I cant read your mind. I can, however, manipulate how it controls you without you knowing it.
No way you say
The fact that youre reading this line of text proves I just manipulated your behavior by provoking your subconscious. I pushed your emotional buttons and sucked you in to reading more. How many of your subconscious actions are controlled by someone else Who knows, it depends on who you are. But we can all agree that this human ability to manipulate the behavior of others is the keystone of todays marketing.
You are being manipulated every waking minute of your day.
The advent of the Internet has connected us globally. Add to this, the hundreds of thousands of merchants whove adopted affiliate programs as a way of consigning an army of salespeople to actively headhunt new customers in exchange for commission earnings. So where does it end up Right here: An all time record number of humans manipulating other humans. No wonder its getting harder to sell stuff. From the second you wake up youre bombarded with attempts to sell you stuff.
People will do anything for money and so they do anything to get your attention. Taking of their clothes on national TV, proclaiming outrageous benefits, and acting out close to illegal attention seeking publicity stunts are not uncommon tactics.
The inherent problem here is that its no longer a matter of whether there are enough customers in the market. It is whether you can capture and keep a customers attention for a few minutes of their 24-hour day. This is why the plethora of marketers opt to use hypnotic and manipulative communication to win your attention.
What if you could bypass all this manipulation
Imagine if you could shut the door on the screaming, banner-waving crowd of competitive marketers. Sit your customer down in your office and present your product with their complete attention
A new league of customer acquisition techniques that bypass the constant manipulation is rising from the chaos of todays marketing. One of which I am personally fond of is Customer Reciprocation.
Customer Reciprocation takes a holistic view of Internet marketing, applying traditional win-win formulas to the modern way of doing commerce. If you remove all the hype of today, what youre left with is age-old commerce propositions. Do you need something to solve your problem Then buy this product, and Ill scratch your back if you scratch mine.
Customer Reciprocation bypasses the hype because each customer who purchases from the other only purchase the products that they had already intended to purchase. A fair and honest way to acquire customers for both affiliate marketers and merchants. General online shopping portals manipulate customers to shop at a limited list of merchants by offering discounts, rewards or other incentives. Customer Reciprocation delivers to you as a customer the freedom to shop anywhere online while still receiving a discount. The discount is in the form of a customer to you or your affiliated merchant generating you income.
Deep down we all like to sell stuff the honest way, and none of us like to be manipulated. So it is easy to see why Customer Reciprocation is growing in popularity. It may be a slow-and-steady customer acquisition strategy but its one that is guaranteed to reap results for its users.
Copyright 2005 Michael Lever
Michael Lever is a co-founder and CEO of SpinningTornado.com, an independent company offering unbiased tools and services to help affiliate and network marketers build profitable online businesses. Partnering affiliates the world over.