How to Market Your Business for Free

Every business has sought free ways to market. Some have expended a sizable amount of time and energy to market for free. The incredible thing is that free marketing strategies have been under everyone's nose the entire time. In fact, the very essence of marketing is to earn a profit. It is an investment, not a cost; a means to an end. Good marketers know that good marketing doesn't cost a dime, because it always has a return.

Try direct-mail marketing

One of the best ways to market a business for free is through direct mail. Direct-mail postcard campaigns carry the lowest risk of all; mostly because they tend to produce a high response rate and they're economical to print and mail. You purchase a mailing list, hire a designer and copywriter, and print and mail 10,000 postcards with a great offer to sell your customers a widget at the discounted rate of $50. So, if you spend $6,000 on copywriting, design, a mailing list, printing and mailing your postcards and have a conversion rate of 2 percent: Two percent of 10,000 is 200. At $50 per sale, the campaign would gross $10,000. You would net $4,000 profit.

   $10,000

- $   6,000

   $   4,000 profit margin

  Keep in mind that 2 percent is a very reasonable rate; and when your mailing list is highly targeted you can do even better. See how your return on investment makes marketing free? It's like getting free money! OK, the flipside: You can lose your hind end on a bad direct-mail marketing campaign. If you invest $6,000 and your conversion rate is 1.2 percent, you will break even. Any conversion rate under that mark will result in a loss.

Good fundamentals = strong marketing

To avoid launching a bad campaign, incorporate the fundamentals of a sound direct-mail marketing campaign. Hire professionals to write your copy and design your postcard, invest in a great mailing list, have your postcards professionally printed, and develop an outstanding offer that your target audience can't refuse. The reality is that a good direct-mail campaign is a safe investment when you know what you're doing. An outstanding direct-mail marketing campaign could yield a conversion rate as high as 5 percent, which in our example would yield a return of $19,000. That's $15,000 more than the 2 percent rate, so it pays to invest in professional writers, designers, printers and list brokers for your direct-mail campaigns. When you do, you make money; and that's free marketing.