Marketing is a constant struggle for solo consultants and small business owners. It’s always a gamble whether your marketing effort will be worth the money and time invested, but it’s a necessary evil. Without marketing, there’s no way for people with needs (customers) to know that we are here to fulfill them.
Without a large marketing department at your disposal, many traditional marketing techniques require a substantial upfront investment with unpredictable results. Examples of this include direct mailings, fliers, signs, and ads in the paper, on the radio, and on TV.
I’d like to explore some advertising techniques that are not only completely free, but also automated. What I mean by automated is that once they are set-up, they have the potential to continually provide marketing leverage for you over time. Keep in mind, however, that these techniques do require some significant time investment up-front, and the results may be slow coming at first. Often that leverage is compounded over time, so the longer these free marketing techniques are in place for your business, the more turn-around you’ll see as a result.
