Easy Steps to Advertise Your Business for Free

Most marketing experts recommend that businesses spend anywhere from 2 to 5 percent of their gross sales on advertising. But if you're still growing your business, you might not have the budget for large ad campaigns, or you might be focusing your capital on other areas. You too can take advantage of free ways to reach potential customers and advertise your business for free.

1. Start a web presence

Harness the power of the Internet to draw attention to your business. The web is full of free outlets that can potentially reach hundreds of thousands of consumers .

You can Make a Free Website to provide information about your business and market your products and services.

A business email address is important. You can Make an Email Address for Free. On every email you send out for your business, have a small 3-4 line signature at the bottom (add this in Settings). Include links to your business' website, Facebook page, Twitter account or whatever other online presence you have.

2. Use Twitter

Setting up a Twitter account. It is also a place where you can advertise for your business for free, and it allows you to interact with customers on an immediate and personal level. See Twitter for Business for more information.

Choose a handle or username that's as close to your business' name as possible and tether your business email to the account.

Use your logo as your avatar. Seeing your business logo with every tweet you publish can help strengthen your brand.

Follow current customers, family members, friends and other businesses you admire or whose products your business uses.

Promote your business in your tweets, but keep it fun, too - host giveaways or give shout outs to loyal customers. Give people a reason to follow your business.

3. Create a Facebook page

Setting up a business page on Facebook is free, and allows you to interact with your customers and other businesses. See Facebook for Business for more information.

Host giveaways limited to people who "like" your profile or share one of your posts, and offer special Facebook-only deals via messages to customers who follow your activity.

Many businesses forgo creating their own website and simply list their Facebook pages as their business sites. Consider if this might be the right course of action for your business.

4. Get on Yelp

Yelp is a website where consumers can review and recommend businesses. Learn more at Yelp for Business Owners.

You can use your Yelp page to post information and special offers, as well as to gauge how well you are serving your customers.

Some business owners respond to bad reviews on Yelp by contacting the Yelp user directly or posting a reply offering to remedy the situation. This allows you to let potential customers know you take their concerns seriously.

5. Build your Google Places listing.

List your business on Google Places so that it will pop up on Google Maps searches, and so people can share reviews and rate your business. it is very helpful way to advertise for your business for free. Make sure you have a Gmail account specific to your business. Yahoo! Local hosts a similar service.

6. Create an account with a free online directory

Most online directories allow you to upload unlimited products, businesses and services with a detailed information about such product and also automatically provides a contact form for individual product where prospective customers can contact product owner one-on-one. 

Create your listings. Listings are the products, business or services you or your company offers. A good online directory allows you to upload as many as possible listings so as to boost your target market reach.

Your products will be stored in the database and will be displayed on their front page. All products uploaded are also search engine optimized after 24 hours.

7. Join appropriate online communities

Many industries, especially those with special niches, have online communities where people discuss and share information. Joining and contributing to these online communities can be a valuable marketing tool.

It is important to be active in these online communities to build rapport with other members. If you only participate only intermittently, you may lose more customers than you gain.

You also should not just blatantly advertise for your business for free in these communities. Make sure your contributions are valuable to the other members, but always put your business name, logo, and links to other web presences in your signature.

8. Write press releases

Did you just open your business? Are you supporting a charity drive around the holiday season? Did you just wrap up a special project? Pitch your story to your local media outlets and see if they're interested in covering you.

Try newspapers, broadcast news and radio shows. By using multiple media sources, you can reach more potential customers.

You can write press releases for almost any event in your business. However, if you send too many press releases that are of little interest, the media may lose interest.