Recession Special: How to Advertise on a Shoestring

If your web-based business relies on consistent traffic for success, and you have a small advertising budget, then you are indeed in a bind. Fortunately, if you get creative and think outside of the box, you can find plenty of effective ways to advertise, all without spending money. Take a look at our suggestions below.

Tip #1: Share Holiday Cheer

Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but we are in the middle of the holiday season. Take advantage of it and send some Season’s Greetings to all of your current and past customers. Don’t worry about finding cards and creating mass-mailings. Instead, just create a simple eCard and send it out to your email mailing list. Be sure to add a nice thank you message.

It is also a good idea to send out a special offer or notify them of a new service or product that will be introduced in the New Year.

Tip #2: Distribute An Article

Another great way to get the word out is to write a well-written article on a subject related to your website. Then distribute this article. Some ways that you might distribute it is by:

• submitting it as a guest post on a popular blog. In turn, the blog will give you a link back to your website. Many people who have used this technique report large surges in traffic within the first week of submission, with a consistent stream of visitors coming weeks and months later.
• submitting it to an article database. This method is especially useful for getting wide distribution and increasing the number of links to your website.
• publishing it on your blog. Blogging is a popular approach to generating traffic for websites. Be sure that you submit your blog to popular blog submission websites. Unfortunately, it might take a while for your blog to take off. So it might be more advantageous to focus on the other methods first.

Tip #3: Get Out Your Megaphone

One underappreciated method for generating traffic is by creating press releases. To create an effective press release, just write a promotional article about a new service or product and then submit it to free press-releases distribution services. Some services that we suggest include: I Newswire, PR.com, and PR Log. And for a more free press-release distribution websites, check out this list on Mashable.

Bonus Tip: Reevaluate Current Advertising Methods

It is also a good idea to reevaluate any advertising methods that you currently use. If you find that one method is not successful, cut it from your advertising budget.

If you use pay-per-click marketing, consider making changes to your campaign by targeting high-converting keywords or by choosing keywords which are less expensive per click. (For additional options for improving the effectiveness of a pay-per-click marketing campaign, visit 7 Tips to Save Money on Your Pay-Per-Click Campaign on Saad Kamal’s blog.)