As a small business owner are you looking at promotional strategies that could, while giving you a steady stream of prospects can also save costs?

Do you know that thousands of website owners use few simple techniques to generate targeted visitors to their websites without spending a penny on advertising? Yes. It is the webs most well kept marketing secret.

These are the strategies used by fortune 500 companies as well as some of the most successful internet marketing wizards.The principle behind this incredible internet marketing strategy is first GIVE and then GET. When used effectively, the results could be mind boggling.

How Does This Strategy Work?

Imagine for a moment that you are selling insurance. It is just an illustration. It could be a healthcare product, credit cards, housing or innumerable other loans or anything under the bright blue skies. The moment you talk of insurance to any prospect who is already hunted (pardon my term hunted. that is what a prospect feels about sales approaches) day in and day out by insurance sales persons, immediately erects a barrier and comes up with innumerable excuses for not wanting insurance.

Now there is another way. You offer people valuable information about choosing the right insurance in the form of a free report, an article, or a book. Would people take it? They definitely would. Because they are under no obligation or pressure to buy anything in the first place. They are also getting a benefit which is valuable information about choosing the right kind insurance.

Now this free information product that you offer has subtle messages or links to your website with your address and phone no's as the sponsor of the book. The person reading the book has already started to build a good image about you because you have offered him valuable information which is going to benefit him. He is obliged to you for the free service that you have rendered him. So he is more likely to call you if he needs your product than any other competing product.

Let's assume for a moment he does not require insurance. But just because he appreciates the valuable information contained in your info product he forwards it to five more of his friends or relatives. Your information with your ads has now been exposed to 6 persons whereas you gave it to only one with no involvement of time, money, or effort. These five people again find the information valuable and each person shares it with 5 more of their friends. Now you have reached 31 more people. This way it continues on may be not in the same arithmetical progression mentioned here. It could be more or less. But be rest assured you have created a viral advertising tool that keeps moving and replicating and spreads across.

We have taken an example of an ebook, e-report, or white paper. In the case of an article it works slightly differently. An article is published in ezines like this one with a huge readership. Whoever likes the article can of course forward it to their friends. But a content syndication site also has thousands of other ezine owners visiting it for content. So an article which is preapproved by the author gets published and in turn they keep being republished in hundreds of sites with the authors link in the article.

Now do you see what an exciting promotional strategy this could be that has very little cost implications while reaching a wide national or global audience making your cash registers ring.

R.G. Srinivasan is a management professional. He is also the author of eBooks, publishes 3 popular blogs on management thoughts, home businesses, and health.

You can check out his blog at http://management-thoughts.blogspot.com.

RELATED ARTICLES Reciprocal Link versus Value Exchange Most webmasters are familiar with the concept of reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking is the exchange of links between webmasters with the hope of improving their site ranking with the search engine. Keeping It Clean Could Give You A Boost Keeping it clean could give you a boost.By Mark WhiteEveryone is striving to be at the top of thepile, we all want to get a better google PR and want thisto reflect in more visitors to our site. Power Linking 2005 Redefines Web Site Promotion Web site owners are realizing Jack Humphrey's Power Linking isn't just another typical traffic generating program or another seo software application. Unlike most courses that are written in 3 days, Power linking is the culmination of 3 years of the best practices, honest, proven, tested strategies, & hard core results for thousands of customers worldwide. Competition Freebies and Sponsorship For Free Advertising and Link Popularity How many competitions are there running on the net at this time? 1000 maybe? Nah, 100,000 is more than likely and when they pass their closing date there will be just as many to take their place.So, why are companies so desperate to give away free stuff just for answering a question or two? I'll tell you why. Cross Promote Online For Maximum Profits Cross promoting is when two or more businesses promote their products or services together. I try to find businesses that have the same target audience, but are not in direct competition with my business. How To Use Banner Ads Effectively It's no big secret that banner ads have become less effective than text links over the years. This phenomenon is called "banner blindness". If You Build It, They Will Come? Many of you will remember the line from the movie Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come." Many businesses apply this methodology to their business model. Search Engine Optimization in an eCommerce World Before one can fully understand the importance and necessity of implementing a search engine optimization program into their marketing mix, it is important to look first at the phenomenal statistics regarding Internet use. For example:There are 7 new people on the Internet every second. Fight For Online Visibility Would you like to prevent Internet users from visiting your website? You may feel that you're asked a silly question. But then think about why so many investors are silently watching how their web projects are doomed to invisibility from the outset despite nobody wants to conceal his or her own website from the public. Niche Markets and Mini Sites Profits - The War Has Begun! Niche markets and mini sites are taking lately by storm theInternet marketing field. But despite of all kinds of freeinformation you receive, there still plenty of tips coupleof Netpreneurs "forget" to tell you about. Marketing Tips for Your Web Site Here are some simple and easy tips on how to market and drive traffic to your site.1. Five Fun Ideas That Increase Online Traffic 1. Using Hidden Links to increase subscribers or for acontest. How to Get Unlimited Free Advertising The opportunities for getting free advertising for your product or services are limited only by your own imagination and energies. There are so many proven ways of promoting your own objectives without cost that it literally boggles the mind just to think of listing them. You've Created a Business Website: So Now What? Congratulations! You and your designer have just finished creating your business website. It's live on the Internet, waiting for all of those hot prospects to visit and hire you. Dont Put All Your Promotion Eggs In The SEO Basket One of the most frequent questions I get asked by my clients is "What is the best way to promote my site?" If a brand new webmaster asks me that question then I will take as much time as I can possibly muster to answer their request, before they learn about and put on the SEO and ranking blinkers so many webmasters wear with pride.Allow me now to state the obvious, the success of any website is in direct proportion to the amount of visitors it receives. Why Your Site Needs Fresh, Relevant Content It is said that content is king, but today 'fresh, relevantcontent' is the master - or is it?Every owner of a commercial web site knows that frequent freshcontent is needed on their pages in order to achieve andmaintain a high listing on search engines which actively seekfresh content. Google sends out its 'freshbot' spider to gatherand index new material from all the sites which offer it. How to Make Your Website Sticky! Five Nifty Ways to Make Your Site Sticky!'Stickiness' is one of the most overlooked aspects of sitepromotion. Webmasters, jump thru hoops to optimize theirsites for the search engines, work like mad to find the right keywords, and double over backwards to build links. Web Site Advertising: 10 Blockbuster Secrets To Make Your Web Site More Profitable Do you want to make your website more profitable?If you answer yes, here are web site advertisingsecrets to help you:1. Address your targeted audience on your businesssite. Personalized Search Versus Personal Choice Personalized search is a hot topic especially since Yahoo! and Microsoft have announced they are aggressively developing this service. Most likely, people will be leery of personalized search if they think that this is just be another way for companies to market to them. 4 Steps to a Robot's Tea Party Creating a new website is only the first stage in what is a long, arduous process to internet success. Millions of new websites, many of them intended to be commercial, are created every year and then????nothing happens.