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.