Economic Stimulus Plan: 107 Free or Low-Cost Small Business Marketing Ideas
By Walt Goshert on Feb 14, 2008 in Marketing Tactics
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Recessions have a way of cleaning out the weak in business.
Does your business sell well, but not deliver on your promises?
A recession will crush you.
Does your business keep all promises, but can’t close the deal.
Again, look out… the Recession will clean your clock.
And… if you’re waiting around for the Government to help…
Good Luck.
Here are links to 107 Free or Low-Cost Small Business Marketing Ideas and Resources. These are solid marketing tactics and tools you can use right now. You’ll pick up marketing ideas that will help you grow your business… even in tough times.
It’s amazing that you can find this amount of small business marketing advice at the click of your mouse. Equally amazing is how much marketing crap you’ll bump into when you’re blindly surfing around.
Lately, lots of small businesses have asked me:
“So Walt, what’s the single best free or low-cost marketing tactic to get real results?”
Listen up here.
You gotta listen real close to hear this…
When you hear this you’re gonna brush it off saying…
“I know that Walt. I’m already doing that. In fact, that’s how I get most of my business.”
Great… good for you, but let me ask you…
Do you have a Referral Marketing System?
Do you leverage you most important business asset… your client relationships… with a Referral Marketing System?
A Referral Marketing System positions you to attract more new clients, have your current clients buy more often from you, and sell bigger, more profitable products and services.
More clients.
Clients buying more frequently from you.
Clients spending more money with you.
Would those three help YOUR business?
Now… on with the show.
Let’s go see who will help us make some money without a lot of money. (Two Recession Marketing Thoughts: Cash is King…and… Marketing Means Cash!)
WARNING: You’ll about to discover a variety of sites and resources. Some may or may not fit your particular business situation, but all these sites have a little take-away for nearly all small businesses. Some of ‘em are big and business changing.
1.Package an exceptional client experience and tell a great story.
3. 10 Low-Cost Ways to Market Your Business
5. Blog like an “11″ when your competition settles for a “10″
7. Skellie’s “101+ Resources for Creative Minds”
8. 12 Simple Ways You Can Promote Your Business
9. 13 Essentials for Thought-Leadership Marketing
10. Free Download Report: “13 Vital Customer Retention Strategies for Small Business”
11. 5 Steps to Never Getting a Raise (or Clients)
12. 5 Ways to Boost Your Profits Today
13. 6 Tricks to Outshine Your Competition in 2008
14. 6 Ways to Increase Conversions on Your Web Pages
15. A Comprehensive Guide to Stumble Upon: How to Build Massive Traffic to your Website
16. How “Idea Journals” Accelerate Business Growth
17. Free e-letter of Response-Boosting Secrets
18. 100 Tools and Tips to Tap Facebook
19. The Mightiest Voice in Marketing
20. Bootstraping Your Business
22. Streaming Audio Risk Free Trial
23. Convert Your Marketing into a Religion
24. Seth Godin’s Free PDF “The Bootstrapper’s Bible”
25. Stop Wasting Time Making Coffee
26. Community Bulletin Board Business Cards
27. MasterMind
28. Are You Everything to Everybody?
32. FREE Guide to Growing Your Business
33. Follow Direct Marketing Thought Leaders
34. FREE MP3 Download: Growing Your Business Fast
35. Special Report: The Ultimate PR & Publicity Secret
36. John Carlton’s FREE Strategy Tutorials
37. Think You Gotta Cut Your Prices?
38. Getting Everything You Can Out of All You Got
40. SCORE Resources to Growing Your Business
41. Get a Guru
43. Attract, Develop, and Retain the Best
44. Is Your Marketing Too Aggressive?
45. What’s a Viral Video Gonna Cost Ya?
46. Guy’s “The Art of Bootstrapping”
47. Guy’s “The Art of Schmoozing”
48. Super Salesmanship in 3.5 Minutes Flat
49. Master Your Time and Triple Your Productivity
50. How to Sell High-Priced Services to Complete Strangers
51. How to Use Fusion Marketing
54. Is Madison Avenue Advertising a Total Fraud?
55. 32 Must Reads to Ensure Small Business Success
56. Jack Canfield’s FREE 21-Day Mentorship Mini-Course
57. A Crazy New Way to Increase Sales— From Zero
58. I Want My BudTV?
59. Karma Capitalism
60. Know the Principles of Marketing
61. Marketing/Sales Funnel Excel Analysis Tool
62. 5 Tips for Marketing in a Recession
63. 4 Super-Deadly Marketing Sins— and How to Fix Them
64. How to Market with Your Enemy
65.Michael Port Answers Your Marketing Questions Audio
66. Look Inside the Mind of Jay Abraham
68. Profitable Growth is Everybody’s Business: 10 Tools You Can Use Monday Morning
69. Rescue Your Time
70. The First 30 Minutes of the Day
71. Scarcity: Double-Edged Marketing Sword
73. Who vs. How Many
74. 6 Low-Cost, Cutting-Edge Technology Marketing Tools
75. Small Business Advocate Radio
77. The Ten Tall Tales of Traditional Marketing
78. 10 Top Ways to Get Free PR for Your Local Small Business
79. Small Business Pricing Strategies
80. Small Business and Blogging
81. SpeakWrite
82. Starbucks Cutting Buyers Pain?
83. The Latest from StartUp Nation
84. Stay On “Target”
85. Don’t Hate Selling. Love Selling.
86. Lessons from The American Express Mess
87. The Biggest Crime in Small Business
88. Sex and Money
89. 3 Tips to Equalize Your Cash Flows to Client Flows
90. The Most Powerful Marketing Tool on Earth
91. The Not-To-D0 List: 9 Habits to Stop Now
92. Pick Up the Damn Phone and Call Somebody
93. The Big “R”… The World Will Go On
94. The 3 Most Powerful Ways to Grow Your Business
95. 3 Things You Must Do to Grow Your Business
96. Top 30 Tips for Staying Productive and Sane While Working from Home
97. Top 38 Niche Social Media Sites (That Actually Send Traffic)
98. “Please share one of your best-kept marketing secrets…”
99. 2008 Trend Map
100. Why Sex Sells Better than Ever…
101. My Business Blogger Can Beat Up Your Building Full of Corporate Marketers
102. How Does Your Ownership Style Impact Your Company’s Growth?
103. A Local Mailing/ Auto-Responder Marketing Study
104. Does Your Website Suck? 149 Mortal Sins…
105. 10 Rules for Your Small Business Home Page
And…
Let me know your favorite from the list.
Share a business-building resource or idea that I missed and share it with everyone else.
Hey, even call me out if you think one of my resources flat-out sucks.
Hey Bush and Congress…
Stimulate This__________!
Popularity: 45% [?]
17 Comment(s)
By
Ian Denny
(Check me out!) on Feb 15, 2008 | Reply
Walt,
Great article - that must have taken ages to put together. I’ll struggle picking a favourite, I’ve checked out a few and they’re really good reads.
I’ve stumbled it so I can keep coming back when I need some inspiration.
Thanks for compiling it!
Ian
By
James Constantine
(Check me out!) on Feb 15, 2008 | Reply
Hi Walt,
Terrific information and LOTS of it. I did notice a few typos in the copy but good stuff all around.
My browsers have been hijacked so I can’t use Firefox to stumble it.
Do you have another way I could?
James
By
Andrew
(Check me out!) on Feb 15, 2008 | Reply
Great post Walt.This one is going into my bookmarks.Andrew
By
Walt Goshert
(Check me out!) on Feb 15, 2008 | Reply
Ian… Thanks. Please do share your favorite discovery.
James… Hey, please point out the typos. I suck at editing sometimes when I have 107 different things going on.
You might try the bookmark thing at the end of my post. It pulls up all the social marketing sites, and I know Stumble is on it.
Walt
By
Ted Prodromou
(Check me out!) on Feb 15, 2008 | Reply
Hey Walt,What a fantastic list! People hear the word recession and they panic. The press gets ahold of it and makes it seem a thousand times worse than it really is. There’s so much conflicting news out there and the press just tries to scare the crap out of us. The bottom line is that if you provide a high quality service that solves your customers problems you’ll thrive in any economic environment. Many businesses thrive during recessions by providing products and services absolutely need and can’t live without. Business owners should look at what products and services they provide and add some recession proof items to their menu of offerings.
By
dean
(Check me out!) on Feb 15, 2008 | Reply
Walt,Without sounding self serving, that is one rich and powerful list of tools! Thank you for including my experience with Ann Tardy ofhttp://lifemoxie.com.I am going to reference this list as a starter through accomplished business owner survival guide moving forward in 2008. Outstanding source Walt–keep hittin em straight!dean
By
David Forer
(Check me out!) on Feb 15, 2008 | Reply
Walt, this is a very valuable post for us newer marketers. It will be hard for you to top this one. I am bookmarking for future reference and would recommend others to do the same.
By
Walt Goshert
(Check me out!) on Feb 15, 2008 | Reply
Dean… Thanks Buddy, your post with Ann Tardy highlights practical networking skills that all small business owners need. And, imagine the power of taking her offline techniques into the social marketing realm online…
Thanks David… Maybe I can’t, or don’t even want, to top it in quantity, but I already have a follow-up quality post that’s in the works… and coming soon!
By
Walt Goshert
(Check me out!) on Feb 15, 2008 | Reply
Andrew… hope you find reasons to pull it out of your Bookmarks from time to time.
Ted… Recession? What Recession… I refuse to believe in a Recession, and I’m too busy to listen to the News.
You’re right. Deliver solid value to your clients. Always. As I said at the top, if you’re lazy, and were just riding the good time wave, you don’t deserve to thrive long-term.
Here in the U.S., we need to realize it’s a “Flat World”, even for the local small business. You better get lean and learn how to market effectively.
Why? Because millions of people in China, India, and places emerging all over the World wanna take your place. I happen to think these millions of people are an opportunity rather than a threat. They need our help… and we need theirs.
By
Vicky
(Check me out!) on Feb 15, 2008 | Reply
Editing! That’s one of the things I do very well! Visit my site to Hire Me Today. http://www.vickysvirtualoffice.com Relentless Self Promotion. That’s on the list right? :}
By
Walt Goshert
(Check me out!) on Feb 15, 2008 | Reply
Vicky,Thanks for the comment.A+ for following link #2.It is on my list. It’s a long list.
By
CatherineL
(Check me out!) on Feb 16, 2008 | Reply
Hi Walt - Great list of 107 resources. Thanks for the link and the digg you thought you gave me!
By
Walt Goshert
(Check me out!) on Feb 16, 2008 | Reply
Thanks Catherine,
For planting the “107″ in my head… your list still rules!
You posted your comment here before I was able to finalize my link post to you…
But, the Digg is done. I’ll take it easy on the Stumbles.
Thanks,
Walt
By
Steve Pronger
(Check me out!) on Feb 21, 2008 | Reply
Great list of resources Walt. Stumbled you. See you on Social Marketing Central and many other places no doubt.
Steve (motherduck)
http://socialauthority.ning.com/xn/detail/u_19hu37ev2xjx2
By
Walt Goshert
(Check me out!) on Feb 21, 2008 | Reply
Thanks Steve… hope you find a couple things you can use.
Appreciate the Stumble.
Walt
By
Zack
(Check me out!) on Mar 2, 2008 | Reply
Wow, Walt! Finally getting back online and wanted to add my support for this great post. Really helpful. There’s a lot of really good information in here if you read everything. Just wow, great resource. Thanks!
By
Walt Goshert
(Check me out!) on Mar 2, 2008 | Reply
Thanks Zack,
Hope you find a few things that will help boost your business in 2008.
Walt