Hi Carla, sounds like you are about the same as me in terms of not wanting to spend any money advertising. I decided early on that until I learned much more about internet marketing, I simply was not going to spend any money advertising!
Here is some of what I have learned in the past few months that may help you or someone else looking to advertise:
First, when you advertise in forums such as Adlandpro or Autosurf or link exchange sites, you simply are "preaching to the choir". What I mean is you are simply exposing your product/services to other MLMers who are trying to do the same thing. My results have been virtually nill!
Secondly, I have learned from numerous others that investing $25-$35/1000 "leads" nets you a conversion ratio so low that even a novice such as myself can clearly see it is not cost effective.
Thirdly, from everything I have learned the only way to truly get good exposure is through "TARGET Marketing". I am just starting to learn about this but have found that entries in BLOGS, Forums- even Guestbooks about your product/services can get you exposed through search engines.
My advice to anyone looking to advertise in a truly cost effective way is to learn how to get picked up by search engines. Short of using "tags" and "over-my-head" website design techniques- somehow one has to figure out how to get picked up by search engines. Example; one of my businesses is Selling Jerky. So, if someone uses a search engine looking for Jerky, I want my site to appear on their search result page or better yet; I want to have a portal ad or pop-up on their search result. I haven't figured out quite how to do that for FREE, but I'm working on it.
Until I discover how to get that accomplished, I just post as much as possible in Forums, Blogs, etc. and of course, I spend a little time surfing to get that exposure. I use about a dozen of what I think are the BEST Surf sites/link exchange sites. If you want my list of surf's that I use, just let me know.
One other thing. I did a search on several search engines for Free Ads and posted free ads on several. The key to using them is that some of them are easily picked up by Search engines.
Maybe someday we'll put it all together and get some results!
Good luck and God Bless,
Clay
http://All4Webs.com/x/8/claycastile
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