GM Simmons Co
PO Box 32012
Jacksonville, FL 32237
(904) 645-7981 email
What’s the best way to Market on the Internet without Spending a large amount of Money?
With the continuing bad economy, more and more people are searching for ways to market their businesses at the most cost effective way possible. Traditional forms of advertising, such as TV, Radio and Print ads are out of reach of cost conscious small businesses. So many of these smaller companies turn to the web to market to mass audiences.
That’s smart, but many do not “do their homework” first and simply dive in to the first thing that catches their interest. Unfortunately, many of these businesses fail in their efforts. The reason being that they simply jumped in without giving thought to what will work for their particular business. Not all things will work for all business, especially when it comes to online marketing
The Internet, remember is nothing more than a medium to get your message out. It is not in itself a solution, especially for those with very limited budgets. So what avenues are the best for those companies?
In my experience, there are 3 very inexpensive and yet very effective marketing tools that many businesses can take advantage of that are either totally free, or cost very little. Here they are, in no particular order:
Updating Your Local Listing with Search Engines and Local Directories- While many of these services will charge you for a “premium” listing, most also have the ability to enter basic information into their free directories. And Search Engine Local listings, like Google Places and Yahoo Local, are totally free. The time you spend adding information will be greatly rewarded as the Search Engines put Local Listing results ON TOP of their pages. You can add up to 10 photos and 5 videos on each listing-we strongly recommend adding as much information as possible. One note though, be sure to claim you listing (by clicking the claim this listing link on the page) and that all of your listings have the same information (address, phone number, web address, etc) in them.
Write articles on your specialty and distribute them on the web- Establishing yourself as an expert in the field and someone who can solve online searchers problems is key to gaining trust in the mainly faceless online world. One way to do this is to write articles (like this one) and post them online via Article Directories (like Ezine Articles.com). You can find topics to write your articles on by simply going to online forums that discuss items of interest to your target audience, and find a question that would seem to make a good article. Once you’ve written your article and submitted it, Search Engines will pick it up for keywords relating to the topic. If you’ve never written articles before there are plenty of online tutorials as well as many writers available who will write them for you for a small fee.
Record videos-With the virtual explosion of online video, having one or several videos online that relate to specific subjects of interest to your target market is both effective and inexpensive. Low cost camera’s like the Flip, cost less than $100 on E-Bay, and record remarkably good quality video. Plus it’s easy to upload to the web, simply plug it into your computer via a USB port and the built in editing and uploading programs come right up. And best of all, once a video is uploaded your costs are none-you don’t pay every time it runs or someone watches it. How great is that?
I’ve just listed 3 methods of marketing that any business can do on the Web and not spend a tremendous amount of money doing it. The most cost will come in time spent, but in the long run it will be time well worth it.
There’s plenty more ways that can work, but the most important thing is to do something. Inactivity while your competition is actively marketing will only get you further behind.
With the continuing bad economy, more and more people are searching for ways to market their businesses at the most cost effective way possible. Traditional forms of advertising, such as TV, Radio and Print ads are out of reach of cost conscious small businesses. So many of these smaller companies turn to the web to market to mass audiences.