Burning Questions: Broke Entrepreneur Q&A

This is the first of several Q&A entries I'm going to post, based on questions I've received on the topic of being a broke entrepreneur.

Up first is a question from Broke Entrepreneur reader, Brian:

It's been brought up before, but what's the best/most effective sort of free advertising around? I mean really free: $0.00 USD!

Of course there are many ways to market your business, but as a broke entrepreneur, you have to think both creatively and efficiently, so you maximize your efforts while minimizing your cost. Traditional advertising outlets, such as newspaper, radio and television, are very expensive yet still do the best job of reaching segments of your core audience, but they do not have the reach of the internet. Whether your business is an online store or a lawn service company, you can widen your market - or deepen your customer base with today's free internet tools.

Right now - and I say that because things are always changing, evolving - but right now, the best marketing tool for a broke entrepreneur is a blog, much like this one. Unlike websites that require a professional designer and/or knowledge of coding, a domain name and website, and then a marketing campaign on top of it - most blogs are free, take only minutes to create, and some portion of your marketing is already built in. The current climate is such that audiences are very receptive to blogs and savvy business owners are using their blogs as entry points to the total package, such as the company website or an online store.

A blog is perfect to introduce your product or service first, and then use regular entries to highlight and discuss specific topics to which you want to draw attention. Cleverly written articles and product profiles will keep your readers visiting often; ensuring it is fresh and dynamic will give you favor with the search engines, and later you can link off from your blog to a professional website and/or ecommerce store.

For instance, a colleague of mine makes dolls as a hobby, and a while back she had an active website but never found the type of traffic that she needed to keep it viable. If she were to try it again with a blog, she could write articles about locating the best deals on dollmaking supplies, or using environmentally-friendly products in dollmaking, and she could upload videos of herself in the work room creating a doll, and also include a link to her online store. In addition to building an audience of regular readers who will grow to respect and actively seek out her advice, many of them will naturally click to visit her eBay store and make a purchase. Her cost for marketing and promotion? ZERO.

The unique thing about blogs when compared to websites is also the proliferation of blog directories, social bookmarking sites and RSS data feed services. You will still need to submit to the search engines (or use one of many free submission services), and you have literally hundreds of blog listing sites at your disposal, where you can list your blog and connect with new readers and potential clients. Registration with social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and Technorati allow your readers to easily share your blog with thousands of others with just a click, which give you an even bigger audience as your articles become "favorited" and acquire high ratings.

Two of the most popular free blogs are Blogger and Wordpress, but a quick Google search will yield hundreds more that offer various features and degrees of affordability. If you're thinking of starting a blog, visit a few of them and look around to see which one will fit your needs.

So that's my choice for the best marketing tool for any business. That is, until something better comes along!

Thank you for your question, Brian.

Please visit Brian's blogs, Starting a Small Business Without Losing My Mind , and Apathetic Lemming of the North, a blog about, well, blogging!

If you have any questions for me, please send them to denise@brokeentrepreneurs.com and I'll include them in a future Q&A!