AdvanicngWomen.com Career

Many small and home based businesses know they need to market and yet, have little or no money to do so. But don’t ever let this be an excuse not to market. Even on a limited budget you can promote and gain visibility for you and your business.  In fact, in tough times, marketing becomes both your flotation device and high intensity beacon, keeping you afloat and putting out a signal where you are and how to find you, attracting whatever business remains out there to head your way.

The following three strategies have proven extremely effective for countless businesses as they can for you.

1.Press Releases - Very effective and they offer a great deal of credibility when published. You must have a well written release that is pertinent to the media source you are sending it to. You can distribute press releases both online and off.

A quick Internet search under media resources in your city will bring up radio, television, newspapers and magazines in your area. To find online resources do a search under “free online press release distribution.” Here is one list  of Free Press Distribution sites although a few of them may now charge.

PR Leap does charge now, from $49 -$149 depending on the types of features you want.  However, what AdvancingWomen.com likes about PR Leap is that is somewhat less expensive and gets you exposure in social media sites like Twitter and Delicious with embedded video and tags. You also can include images, PDFs, and MP3s.  It hits the big news services like AP and UP; its releases are sometimes on the front page of Google News, and the releases go to book marking sites Delicious, Digg, reddit, and Stumbleupon.  In other words, instead of focusing just on print media,  PR Leap ( and possibly some of the others)  is very Net savvy and social networking friendly. That is something you should look for.

Next. Before you sit down to write your press release you need to figure out a couple of things like:
-Who is your target market?
-What is your target media?
-Who is the contact person at the media outlet
-Do you have an attention-grabbing headline?

You can get some help on writing a press release from the following sources:
Publicity Insider, How To Write A Press Release

And a professional press release template is at Duct Tape Marketing.

2. Articles – Writing articles is a great way to gain recognition as an expert in your field or specific industry. By providing practical information, you can reach targeted audiences. You can also gain a lot of links and traffic to your own website. This can create  opportunities for you and your business.

3. Presentations - One of the most effective ways to market your product or service is to offer a complimentary information seminar. When you provide great information that is of interest to your market you have become a resource before you are a vendor.

By positioning yourself as a resource you are marketing in a very unique way.

Hosting a presentation can be virtually expense free. You can offer to do a presentation at a staff meeting for a client. Many large companies have brown bag lunch speaking opportunities.

You can host a meeting open to the public at your local library. Be sure to send press releases to the local media when you are offering a presentation open to the public.

Many associations, including your local Chamber of Commerce, are constantly seeking presenters who can provide timely and content driven talks that benefit their members.

When you apply one of the three recommendations to your marketing mix you definitely will benefit. When you apply all three the results can take you and your business to the next level.

For the original article go to AdvanicngWomen.com Career

Contributors: AdvancingWomen.com, and Kathleen Gage author of  FREE eBook Street Smarts eMarketing Tips Guaranteed to Jump Start Your Internet Presence to Put You Miles Ahead of the Competition http://www.streetsmartsmarketing.com/free-ebook.htm