As a small business you are usually on a limited budget. This means you often have to tighten your budget when it comes to marketing your business. Surprisingly enough there are several ways to promote completely free and still be able to have an effective campaign. In fact when you use free methods you can then build enough money to get paid advertising.

Ways to promote for free:

• Article distribution

• Ad and article swapping

• Cross promoting

• Networking

• Forums and Bulletin boards

• Announcement lists

• Blogging

• Viral marketing

• Newsletter

• Search engine submission

• Linking

• Joint ventures

Article distribution is a powerful way to promote your business. Here are a couple of techniques to make it even more effective.

• Always write your articles with your special market in mind. For instance if you have a web development service write an article on a hot marketing topic.

• Always include your 3-line bio and adapt it to fit the subject and audience. For example, if you are promoting your newsletter mention you are a publisher and make sure your subscription box is on every page of your website. If you are promoting your web design service make sure your bio reflects what you do and the URL leads to your web design service page.

• Always allow rewrites with your permission to use on the top and bio on the bottom

• Go to Google and find libraries and article distribution places.

Cross promoting by placing your subscription box with partner websites is an effective way to build your opt-in list and promote your business. You can swap subscription boxes with your partners. You can also recommend their newsletters and they can do the same for you.

Business networking online: Business networks like Ryze.com can be valuable sources for promotion. You can join for free and they allow you to post your articles on many of the networks. Remember to join only those targeting your market and to post replies and questions as well as articles with your small sig and URL Advertising as such is not allowed on these networks but your sig will be your salesman.

Forums and Bulletin boards work the same way. Again target them well. You can find those relating to your field in the search engines. The same rules apply as business networks; let your sig be your salesman. Ask questions and give helpful answers wherever possible. Let people know you are the expert in your field.

Announcement lists: Can be quite effective. You can join Yahoo Groups to send announcements. Do not blatantly advertise, but you can send announcements for a new newsletters or exciting new info articles on your website. Check the rules carefully.

Blogging is a great way to bring attention to new articles, products and services. You can link them back to relevant pages in your website. This will help you build up page ranking with Google and get ranked higher in the search engines.

Viral oe word of mouth marketing: Can be done free e-books, e-courses and reports. These can be given away on your website or with your free newsletter. Put a couple of links to your affiliate programs and you will also make money with this method. Always remember not to put too many links and make sure they are relevant and useful to your reader. Your articles can also work as a strong viral marketing tool.

Your free newsletter is one of your greatest marketing tools. You can capture email addresses at your website and build a highly targeted list of subscribers who over time will become your loyal customers. When you write a good informative newsletter your readers will pass it on to friends and give you free exposure or your business. You can add a couple of your own ads in your newsletter.

Search engine submission: Is free for many of the engines and when you get indexed and combine with links you will often be included in the paid engines or free. Business Directories are often free. Try to make sure you submit to the right category with directories.

Linking is also free and you can build a good steady stream of targeted traffic by exchanging links with good quality, relevant sites.

Joint ventures are also free and you can make some lucrative deals with partners by making them the right offer.

As you can see there are many good ways to promote your business for free. They are effective and when done right will bring you targeted business leads and even some sales. When you are a small business you can be a big player and you do not have to spend large amounts of money promoting your business.