How to Get Free Advertising

Free advertising works. And it's not just for companies that have a limited budget. Any size company can benefit from free advertising. Here are 11 ideas on how to advertise for free.

1. Place copies of extra flyers on bulletin boards in your community – any place that has a bulletin board. You can hang them in Laundromats, supermarkets, local businesses, banks. Many schools have bulletin boards, but you need to ask to hang your flyer in schools.

2. Place flyers on cars in parking lots. Check that your city doesn't have any kind of ordinance against this.

3. Write articles for free. By writing articles for Web sites or industry publications for free, many publishers will give you a byline, or a credit line, along with the article. You can use this byline to advertise your business and give out your Web address. An example: "By Joe Schmoe. Schmoe is the president of XYZ, a blah blah company. Visit blahblah.com."
Another way to use writing free articles is negotiating free ad space in place of payment for your article.

4. Leave sales brochures or flyers on doorsteps. Leave them with businesses as well as residences.

5. If you have a great ad that you run in the paper that's one to two inches in size, you can easily make this into a stamp. Once you do that, stamp all the envelopes of your outgoing mail.

6. If you use envelopes that have your return address printed on them, have the printer also print your slogan or a short ad beneath your address. Many color printing shops won't charge extra for this.

7. You can negotiate some free ad space with some publishers by offering to mail their catalog or newsletter to your mailing list. You don't have to give up your contacts, and this can become an ongoing free marketing campaign.

8. Free newspaper ads. If you live in a small town, your local newspaper might have space left over they need to fill. Newspapers don't use white space, which means they have to fill each page with either a story or an ad. Small newspapers might run your ad for free on the days they need the content.

9. If you use a postage meter machine, you can customize the space to the left of the stamp imprint to display your slogan or some other short ad.

10. If you have an e-newsletter, mail order catalog or anything else that could contain advertisements, contact other businesses that complement yours that have their own print materials with ad space. If both businesses have similar circulation numbers, many companies will exchange an equal amount of ad space with you.

11. Use advertising specials to your advantage. Some publishers will offer ad space at a two-for-the-price-of-one rate. Although technically this isn't free, you are getting one ad free. You could ask for or look for a buy-one-month-get-one-month free ad rate.

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Charen Smith is a writer who constantly writes about the progress in color printing technology and Internet Marketing. She has an extensive knowledge and experience when it comes to business strategies, techniques and business solutions.