Invest Your Time Instead of Your Money

There are many things you could be doing to raise community awareness of your business, but are you going after them?

Give a free seminar or demonstration. If you exhibit at tradeshows already, you have booth materials ready to go. Drag them out and put them to use at local fairs.

Volunteer your expertise on behalf of a community organization, and get some good PR for it. Then leverage that PR by putting reprints of any newspaper articles or television interviews up on your website, or hang copies of the articles on the walls, send an excerpt out in your eZine, or reprint them in your newsletter. Ask your customers to forward your email on to others who might be interested.

Be pro-active about asking your customers to refer you. Satisfied customers will offer up your name if they're asked, but why not ask them to? Better yet, have something prepared for them to pass along to a friend of colleague. Business cards are inexpensive and can be produced in small quantities. Create a referral card for your customers to pass along, or better yet, offer an incentive for them to do so.

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