With the advent of the Internet, marketing has gotten cheaper than ever before. With a few resources, you can spread the word about your product or service in no time. All you need is a computer, Internet access, and a touch of creativity.

The most important thing is to know your target audience. Who would benefit most from your product or service? It wouldn’t make sense to pitch your fishing products to a talk radio station that caters to auto mechanics. Be aware of your demographic and move in the appropriate circles. Once you have determined your clientele, it’s time to get creative.

Hold a contest. Forget sponsoring your local ribbon-cutting event. If you own a pet grooming parlor, consider featuring your favorite clients in an online beauty contest. Offer a free gift as an incentive for others to try your products. Hand out free samples with a coupon for their next purchase.

Marketing materials can be pricey, but if you order in bulk, the price per item can be considerably less. Shop around. Sometimes you can create higher quality promotional materials such as flyers, bookmarks, or business cards at home for less money.

Internet radio is a relatively new medium. Go to www.radio-locator.com or www.web-radio.fm. You can do various searches to find your listening audience. Offer your expertise to the radio show host. Send them a press kit with your latest press release, your biography, and any product samples you can spare. Let them know how you can help them make their jobs easier. Then follow through. You will be a beloved, repeat guest if you deliver what you promise on time and with a smile on your face.

Networking is an important factor in making yourself and your work known. Ryze.com is an extremely generous and helpful place where you can network with all kinds of people for free. The web site does offer an upgraded service for $9.95 per month. I haven’t found the extra bells and whistles to be that compelling and have opted to remain with the free service for now. Yahoo! discussion groups and topic-dedicated message forums are another great place to meet like-minded people. Start your own blog and link to other related services to which your target clientele might be attracted.

If you have a great new product, spread the news. Sharing your announcement to the world needn’t be expensive, but it should be targeted. The free press release service, www.PRweb.com, gets your news on the web fast, free and directly to the people who want to know about you. They offer the option to channel your press release to certain categories. You can also upgrade in ten dollar increments. The more you pay, the more you will be exposed to the right eyes. I actually opted for the free service and got my very first fan e-mail that way. So obviously, it works. A side benefit is that your release appears on the major search engines which is more free exposure.

Free is the key! Small business budgets aren’t always backed up by huge trust funds. By the same token, there are things that you can provide for free that won’t cost you more than a little time and maintenance.

Providing webmasters and ezine publishers (like Thinking Aloud!) with free, well-written articles in your area of expertise can be an extremely powerful marketing tool. Within four months, I was published in over ninety publications both on- and off-line due to this method of marketing. In addition, it is a great way to reach your target audience because your web link and bio are included at the bottom of the article. I increased my web site traffic by 100% once I began this marketing approach. Book sales increased by 33% in one week.

The following links are my favorite ezine article databases. You provide them with the articles, and prospective webmasters and ezine publishers browse them to see if they fit: http://www.family-content.com/, www.netterweb.com/articles, www.allnetarticles.com, www.womans-net.com, www.ezine-writer.com.au, www.clickforcontent.com, www.freezinesite.com.

An added benefit to the ezine approach is the network that you are able to create. I have two regular columns at women’s web sites because they used one of my free articles, and I offered to provide them with more. In addition, after using my articles, several web sites have placed my book in their bookstores or on their recommended reading lists simply because I asked!

Expert interviews are a great way to get exposure. Unfortunately, much like book reviews, they can be hard to get. Offer a simple Q&A or FAQs about your product or service on your Web site. I created a simple Q&A about my book, Diary of a Mother: Parenting Stories and Other Stuff, which I would attach to follow-up e-mails to reviewers and the like. On several occasions, webmasters were grateful that I saved them the time of “having to interview me." They would simply post my Q&A on their sites. Voila! An instant author interview was born.

Contacting your local paper for a feature article about your business will often lead to great publicity. Feature articles sell products more than advertising. After landing a page-length article in my hometown paper, I managed to receive e-mails from old high school friends that I hadn’t seen in ten years. People tend to buy your product or service if they know a bit about you, the person behind the business.

The short of it is this: set a goal, write it down, and put it where you can see it. You can achieve your dreams if you have it in front of you at all times.