Bootstrap Your Way To Success

Sometimes being an entrepreneur seems expensive and seriously daunting, but I have words of encouragement today. There are many affordable (and yes, free) ways to promote yourself beyond expensive ad campaigns and here are some ideas to get you going.

  1. Barter your services for promotional sponsorship ads for area events.
  2. Write topically relevant articles and submit to free article directory sites such as EzineArticles.com
  3. Submit your site (with a great description) to online directories that reach your target audience.
  4. Make comments on related audience, high ranking blogs, with active links back to your site. I use CommentKahuna to find the top ranked blogs that are relevant to what I do. It’s free and easy.
  5. Speak about your area of expertise for local groups or via teleseminar and internet radio.
  6. Answer calls from media for experts at HARO.
  7. Completely fill out all of your social media profiles, with picture and website link. Yes, ALL of them.
  8. Start a YouTube account and begin giving chats using your webcam. Upload for free.
  9. Start a BlogTalkRadio show and start reaching your target audience there. Again, it’s free.
  10. Use Craigslist to promote yourself. You have to relist your ads periodically but it’s free exposure.
  11. Use the online classified ads for all the major papers – most are free.
  12. Participate in book launch promotions where you give a free gift through a squeeze page to build your list of potential customers.
  13. Give a gift to a charity raffle which lists its contributors in their advertising.
  14. Contribute articles to magazines looking for experts. Many online magazines are hungry for new content.
  15. Get a blog – if you don’t already have one, get one today. You can sign up for free on the WordPress site and be up within the hour.
  16. Set up an eBay account and sell a teaser product there. The account is free, it allows you to take credit cards without a merchant account, and you can sell low cost items designed to drive people to your site.
  17. Interview someone interesting and post the interview on your blog. The person you interviewed will almost always list your website with a link to the interview on their site as well. I use BYOAudio ($20/month) and it handles all of my needs. I use Audacity to edit the material, and it’s free.
  18. Create a free directory listing on your website and offer a web badge that participants can post on their sites as proud members of your listing. I use a wordpress plugin that makes it easy.
  19. Create promotional items such as t-shirts, coffee mugs, bumper stickers, and sell them on CafePress. It’s free to set up an account and it’s free advertisement when people use the products.
  20. Joint venture with others – share in the costs, barter your services instead of paying cash, and piggy back what you do with someone else who offers a complimentary service or product.

Put away your wallet and commit a bit of time and you will have some great avenues of promotion. Don’t complain or lament about the “state of the economy”. Make your own magic by jumping in with both feet into the opportunities that are out there, today, available now. Do every single one of these things with the question “What would an entrepreneur do?” and you will be amazed at the results. Best of success to you!

Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman

follow me on Twitter: SmartWoman

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