Companies who do not make use of free advertising are missing the cost-saving yet effective path to promote their business. When targeted well, free advertising is an integrated part of company’s marketing mix. The many methods help you build better communication and interaction with consumers, do post-sales service, build brand awareness, build personal attachment, find more networks and market, and eventually increase sales. But free advertising is not an easy game you can do as you like. There are four “Knows” to remember as you are planning your free advertising techniques.
1. Know your product. You have to know the characteristics of your product. First of all, not every product is suitable to be marketed online. There should be more concerns when you sell something that needs buyers to come and see the unit directly. We can mention antique collectible, home, and car for few examples. Hence, it is usually better to target your free ads to specific location if you sell homes, cars, or collectibles so that interested buyers can come to see the units. Second, not every free advertising method works for every product. Luxurious products such as the high-end sport cars or diamond rings are good examples for this.
2. Know your market target. Sometimes a product’s marketing should be better targeted specifically to certain consumers. So your free ads should not be the universal ones that you are happy with any audiences who read it, accidentally or not. For example, advertising for newly-born baby products and the Mom’s stuffs are likely to be effective with limited market target. Make sure you post the ads suitably and in the right category. Sometimes quantity is not the priority at all.
3. Know your advertising target. This is different from knowing your market target. It is about the purpose of your ads. Are they created to generate direct sales, spread information, or just to build brand and reputation? Based on what your target is, ads to encourage audiences buy a product are different from the two others, and so are them different from each other. It is great to focus on one target at a time because others may flow themselves as long as you provide credible messages in the ads.
4. Know your budget. We call it free advertising, but nothing is truly free. It is true that we do not spend significant cost for Internet connection. There is also no cost for publishing the ads. But you spend time during the process, from looking for suitable media to place the ads, thinking of the concept, designing the ads and perhaps images, posting, and updating them. Certain media such as classified ad site, online forum, and social site will require you to update the ads frequently. As a business, you should calculate the benefits and costs well and conclude if free ads are feasible, because sometimes it is not. Even though you can have someone else to do the works, you spend time to train and manage the job specifications and descriptions, and you have to evaluate some businesses may find it better to post paid ads.
Alex Wu operates a free advertising website that lets people advertise, build groups, and connect. He hopes to create an active environment for businesses to place their USA jobs.
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