You’ve got a great idea and a plan to turn it into a business. Now all you need are customers–and to get them, you need to spread the word about what you’re doing. One problem: Your marketing budget makes your grade school allowance look like a princely sum.
Get Profiled
In 2007, when Seth Mendelsohn founded Simply Boulder Foods LLC, a Boulder, Colorado, company that makes gourmet sauces, he started posting profile pages on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites. Mendelsohn, 31, estimates he has “a few hundred followers, and they all want to hear about our company,” which has projected 2009 sales of more than $100,000.Make Yourself a Star
Perhaps you’ve never thought of yourself as the next Larry King, but today’s media vehicles make it possible for you to host your own show–for nothing. PR expert Karen Taylor Bass, 42, author of You Want Caviar, But You Have Moneyfor Chitlins, hosts her own show on the free network BlogTalk Radio, a social radio network where hosts can create free, live, call-in talk shows using an ordinary phone. The shows are archived and available for download as podcasts.Pluck from the headlines
Publicity 101 tells you to build a media list and send relevant news releases to the contacts on it. That works, but Stacey Dolezal Susini, 35, a former TV news reporter and the founder of Zontis Public Relations in Dallas, says you can get even more mileage by watching what’s in the news. First, understanding the beats–or specific topics and regions–each reporter covers can help you better target your list. In addition, by piggybacking on existing headlines, you can put yourself in the spotlight.Continue Reading: “Low-Cost Marketing Ideas For Your New Biz”
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