5 Dirt Cheap Marketing Ideas to Generate Traffic to Your Site

If you’re like me, you’re constantly trying to learn how to do your marketing dirt cheap.  One of the most beautiful things about the Internet is that you can do things so much cheaper than ever before. 

Take a look at publishing.  In the good ol’ days, you had to find a publisher to sell any book that you wrote.  Now, you can publish and sell eBooks online without a publisher and there are no setup publishing costs.

You can even have a regular book published and some businesses will print them on demand based on the number you need.  So, the Internet has made almost all forms of traditional marketing easier and more affordable than ever.

Here are 10 dirt cheap marketing methods that you can use to promote your business.  However, it should be noted that there is always a downside to marketing so cheaply. 

For one thing, cheap usually means more labor.  If you buy a house that’s a cheap fix-me-upper, you’ll have to put sweat equity into the house to raise its value.  Cheap marketing methods also require sweat equity, so you are going to have to roll up your sleeves to get things done. (Or find a good way to outsource your work.)  You will have to consider the time and work you do in using these methods.

5 Dirt Cheap Marketing Methods

Use Old Data to Create New Content – If you need data that is relevant to your niche or area of expertise, you can gather data from the Internet and present it in a pleasing format to potential clients and customers.  Many freelance writers use data of this nature to write white papers for clients. 

If you are in a technical field, such as engineering, medical, chemical production, or any other type of information drive field, white papers usually are great for this.  You can also use the data on your blog, in an eBook or website. 

There are loads of websites that carry all sorts of data on just about every industry and subject.  You just have to take the time to find it.

TIP:  If you can collect data that is important to your niche, you can rewrite it, create charts and graphs that helpful to your prospects and hand it out for free.  However, before you give that information away, make sure you brand your eBook with your name, website, email, or whatever else you want your target audience to know about you.  You should include a blurb in the document about yourself and your services.

The great thing about this strategy, is that you won’t have to do a ton of writing for it.  You can just use the data, charts, and graphs with a brief write up about how it relates to your target market and industry.

Reuse Your Older Content – If you’ve been writing for a while, you can take that old content and reanimate it into another format.  For example, you can take an old blog post and use it as a script for a video. If you’ve written an eBook, you can take sections of that material and recycle it into blog posts.  Even if you take older blog posts or website pages and promote them on Facebook or Google +, chances are the people now frequenting those places 

have never seen them.

Apply for Online Awards   ̶ There are many businesses and popular websites that give out awards for a variety of reasons.  Once awarded, you will have the prestigious distinction of placing their seal of approval or badge of honor on your site.  The time consumed filling out whatever forms they require you to fill out may be worth the attention you’ll get.

Tip:  Create your own award!  It’s amazing how a trick like this will not only get attention from other businesses in your niche, but also legitimize and create a sense of authority for your business and website.

Online Contests  ̶  This is a marketing idea I used years ago when I ran a music themed apparel business.  I would periodically run a contest where I would have a comic artist create a one panel music themed comic and visitors to my website would submit their dialog for the characters.  The funniest dialog or caption won. 

You can make up all sorts of ideas for online contests which will usually get visitors to your site involved in your business.  Depending on the complexity of the contest, you can run it as long as you like, building up the suspense.  However, you’ll have to figure how to reward your contest’s winner and how valuable or costly the prize will be.

Answer Questions on Popular Forums or Sites  ̶   If you regularly visit a blog or a forum, you can offer excellent advice to people that are looking for answers to questions that are related to your niche or business.  Many forums or blogs will let you place your website address in a signature file at the end of a post. 

This not only gets people interested in your business, but also helps to establish yourself as an authority in your field.  However, if you don’t really know what you are talking about it will be obvious to people fairly quickly that you don’t know what you are talking about.  So make sure you have a well written piece of advice to offer before you post. 

TIP:  If you regularly visit and contribute advice on a blog, ask the owner if you could actually write a blog post.  If the owner wants to see what your writing is like, you can point to posts on HIS blog that you’ve already written and tell him that you are a regular contributor.  This will at least help you to get your foot in the door.

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

(859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com