Freebies, Give Aways & Samples
Clients love a gift with purchase or simply a gift. Who doesn't? Offering a prospective client or customer a gift is a great way to generate good will. If you are a service business, you could offer free mini demonstrations.
Public Speaking
Get your name out there. Contact local schools and associations about classes, colleges, seminars, lectures that you can speak at.
Competitions
Offer a competition with a prize that would interest your target audience but is less expensive than advertising. You can also get your site listed on dozens of online contest directories. Competitions are a fantastic way of putting together a database as well. Many cosmetic and fashion labels use competitions as a way of finding talent as well.
Directories
Ensure your business is listed in all appropriate free directories. If you can afford it, get yourself listed in directories that require a fee (as long as you have researched that directory and it is a directory that will land you business). For example bridal make artists, hair stylists or similar should really list with sites, like Bride Online, I Do.com etc.
Networking
Participating in networks and online forums that complement your business are a good way to increase your networks online, which in turn will increase your traffic.Making friends online is a great way to garner support, find other like-minded business people and develop a professional network without ever leaving your office.
Sponsorship
Sponsor a charitable event or sport that you care about.Not only is it good karma, but you will receive free PR for your business. It will feel good to do something for a cause that you care about. It also makes you look community minded to your clients. For example, Di Kennedy cosmetics provided products for Make-A-Wish Foundation as well as sponsoring Miss World Australia 2006 by providing cosmetics and services.
Offer Free Initial Consultation
It's a way to get your potential customer interacting with you and getting a feel for how you work. An example of this would be a skin care company offering free lunchtime facials.
Write a Blog or articles
Use great keywords with fabulous content. Make your blog newsy, funny and/or and appealing, use meta tags and header tags. Add social networking buttons, link to similar blogs. Link to your own website.
Use "Send to Friends" buttons. As a bare minimum, place an 'Send to Friends' button to your web site's front page. However, it would work really well if you placed a 'Send article to friends' button on all of your other pages too.
PAY PER CLICK ADVERTISING
A fabulous and easy short term solution. This should not replace search engine optimisation. An example of this is Google's Adwords. Great to generate traffic temporarily.
