FREE MARKETING

FREE MARKETING: How To Attract All The Customers You Need For Free!
Basola A. Victor
In business and industry, you are paid based on your ability to sell the superiority or quality of your work to the people whose opinion is most important in determining your success (customers). Entrepreneurs who market themselves the most effectively move ahead far more rapidly in the business than others who do not, even though they may not be more talented and they may not be producing more or better product or services. It’s all about marketing. How much of your business are you selling even in your sleep! If you have not gotten the idea I want to put across to you today then look at the topic again;
FREE MARKETING: Most entrepreneurs spend a fortune on expensive advertising that could cripple them even from the onset. Such expensive advertising may feed your Ego but it necessarily is not going to feed Your Bank Account. There are inexpensive ways to attract customers. There are free ways to create visibility and you can even be paid for marketing yourself.
Here are three (3) specific strategies:
[A] SELL WHAT CUSTOMERS WANT AND ARE WILLING TO PAY FOR
Let’s assume you’re starting a new business or you have a great idea for a new product or service. It’s terrific, it’s creative, and it’s wonderful. It’s unique. It is probably the greatest idea you’ve ever had! Therefore it will sell right? Guess again. The problem with this kind of thinking is that you are assuming your customers have the same wants, needs and taste and view of the world as you do. While that may or may not be true, to assume it’s true is taking a blind and dangerous risk. “You don’t get rich selling what you love alone; you get rich selling customers what they want”.
A small town radio station in rural Mississippi was undergoing a financial down turn. The owner has spent a fortune on the station but could never make a profit. Why? He insisted on his station playing on the music he loved, Lawrence Wolk, Guy Lombard’s and soft instrumentals. The playing of rock, country and gospel music was forbidden because he didn’t like it. Well you can just imagine what size of audience that drew in a small mission town in the mid sixties. Few people turned in and because the audience was small, few people paid to advertize on the station. On the other hand, a nearby competing station owned the market because the owner had a totally different mindset. He said “I hate listening to my station because I can’t stand the music, I just tell the manager to play what the people want and we keep making money.

[B] CREATE VISIBILITY!
In addition to selling what customers want, you need to get their attention and convince them that you are the best person to buy it from. To do that, you have to become visible. People can’t buy from you until they know you exist. Here are some strategies I use to create visibility for free of course.
i. WRITING :
Write an article or several articles and get it published in journals, magazines and news papers where your potential customers will read it. The article should be related to what you do and give readers some information that will help them solve a problem. Finally be sure to let them know how they can contact you. Remember, writers are always viewed with high esteem and your customers will think you are the best or at least among the best. Well established papers might give you trouble but it can try your hands on upcoming ones and remember do it for free

ii. SPEAKING :
Volunteer to present a free seminar for a School, Organization Churches or Company that stands to benefit from your offering the information to their students or members. If participants include potential future customers, it’s another way to create visibility at no cost.
When you speak, leave a trail of tangibles. Pass out at least one piece of printed information that the members of the audience can take with them and that includes the name of your business and how to contact you.
It could be a wallet sized card, a pamphlet, a reprint of an article you have written or even your customer prospectus. Whatever you leave, make it something valuable enough to potential customers that they will take with them for future purpose and you know what that means don’t you?

iii. GET INTERVIEWEED ON RADIO AND T.V
It’s not as difficult as you might think. Talk shows are on the increase and always looking for new guests who have something to say that will attract and hold an audience. The key to making it effective is to target the shows whose listeners and watchers are your potential customers.

iv. WRITE A BOOK TO DEMONSTRATE YOUR EXPERTISE
If your book addresses a problem or subject that interests a large number of people and it is well written, a publisher could buy it from you and publish it, promote it and distribute it for you. Your visibility and credibility as an expert in your business will sky- rocket. You will be interviewed on radio and television shows. And instead of volunteering to speak, you’ll be paid handsomely which increases your visibility and sells more books. If you are an effective speaker, giving a good speech usually results in additional paid speeches. In short you will find yourself being paid to market yourself.


v. ALWAYS GIVE YOUR CUSTOMER SOMETHING FREE EACH TIME THEY BUY FROM YOU :
Customers are always attracted to FREEBIES especially when it is given to them by the business they like buying from. Create free products which contains your information; it could be a product packaging material like;
i. Branded Nylon
ii. Branded Hand kerchiefs
iii. Free service for their kids if you run a home service related business
iv. A free health club or information club where they can get helpful tips monthly for free just
by buying from you.
v. Key holders e.t.c

vi. CREATE YOUR PROMOTIONAL MATEIRALS AND ALWAYS HAVE IT HANDY!
Your promotional materials are your mobile salesmen and you never can tell how far they can reach because people migrate. The materials e.g. your complimentary cards, ID cards, Stickers, Customer prospectus, handbills, flyers etc. could be your advocate someday, somewhere.
A prolific author and sales man Joe Girard once said “I shake hands with everybody, meet daily and every body gets a copy of my Business Cards. Think of all the thousands upon thousands of people that Joe has shaken hands with down the years. Each one of this people have a material of Joe Girard. No wonder he is well known.

[C] GIVE YOUR CUSTOMER QUALITY PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
Quality, prompt delivery of service and customer satisfaction creates a lot of referrals to you. A satisfied customer will not only come back but will bring other friends and partners to enjoy what he/she enjoyed from buying from you. Never give out low quality products or treat your customers without care. When you lose them, you’ve not only lost them but all the money they would have brought. A happy customer becomes your unpaid advertiser. Likewise, an unhappy customer spreads the news like wildfire.

These are three ways you can create visibility and promote your business with little or no out of pocket cost for you. Of course, they really aren’t totally free. You are paying for the exposure with your time and with the hope that the visibility will translate into sales. From experience, that is worthwhile investment.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Basola A. Victor is the Director of Business Skills Academy, a knowledge-centered capacity building and business Training firm based in Katsina, Nigeria.
Phone: 234 (0) 703 5121 346, 234 (0) 705 6169 383