You have a start-up business that you run from the comforts of your home. You have just started to build an online presence too with your website and blog. How can you promote your site and blog without having to shell out big money you do not have yet?

Good thing that the Internet offers many low-cost (and even free!) tools and venues to help your business be seen and heard by a wider market. A good Internet marketing promotion is still possible with the following strategies:

1. Link Building.
This is still the best method to achieve good ranking with search engines. Trade links with quality or high-ranking websites and you will see a positive difference in your ranking too. Make sure you choose sites and blogs that are related to your business or subject matter.

2. Affiliate Marketing.
An affiliate marketing program is a method of taking on a network of smaller websites (known as affiliates) to get targeted traffic to your merchant site. The website owner will put ads on his site to either help sell your products or to send potential customers to your site. This is in exchange for a share of the profits. There are three ways to do online affiliate marketing: Pay Per Click, Pay Per Sale and Pay Per Lead.

3. Email Marketing.
You can advertise your product or service through email. You can create an engaging and easy to read email where you can inform and update old customers and prospects as well. A sound email marketing campaign means sending out a succession of emails that build to an upcoming holiday (Mother’s Day, Christmas, etc.). This is a great way to announce a sale and build interest to your product or service. To get the email addresses of potential customers, you have the option to shell out a fee to an email broker, use a subscription service or count on the referrals of your existing client base. Many businesses use a mix of these methods.

4. E-Newsletter Marketing.
This is another Internet marketing strategy that costs cheap, is attractive to look at and can be quickly produced. A creatively written and designed e-newsletter can be an effective tool to keep current customers updated on events, sales, and new products and to catch the attention of new customers. Like email marketing, an advantage of an e-newsletter is that it can reach an extensive audience in a short period of time.

5. Forums.
Join forums that mainly discuss things related to your products and services and create a wider presence for your business. When you actively post relevant answers to forums, you can build a good reputation among forum members and you can convert them to customers. You should have a signature file in your profile with your company logo, slogan, contact numbers, and links to your site and blog so forum members can easily click on these to know more about you and what you have to offer.

Promoting your business in traditional media such as TV and radio can cost you an arm and a leg. Good thing there is the Internet where you can build your niche even with a low advertising budget. Study and try out these low-cost Internet marketing techniques to get a good head start!
Ludwina Dautovic is the director and founder of The Red Tent Woman, an organisation supporting women in small and home based businesses. They host networking events, offer business mentoring and provide online and offline resources. Ludwina specialises in low cost and innovative approaches to niche marketing and effective Internet marketing strategies.

The Red Tent Woman is the 2008 MCEI National Marketing Award Winner for the ‘Women in Business’ Category and the recipient of the 2009 Australian Home Based Business of the Year Award.

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