Whether you have a real office or a bricks and mortar store, you have undoubtedly moved part of your business, at least your advertising, onto the Web. But are you making the most of the Internet and the wide variety of ways you can market your real or virtual business? Probably not. Let’s recap a few for you.

An interactive Web page. Throwing up a website with no place to “sign up for more information”, “subscribe to our newsletter”, “subscribe to this blog” feature is like pasting a print ad in the paper. It is old news. You must have some type of call to action to cause your customers to interact with you.

A blog. Yes, we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. Blogs give web crawlers a much larger variety of ways to find you. TVLAI gets huge traffic through its blog that it wouldn’t another way.

Video. Adding video to your website or creating and actively using your YouTube account to speak directly to your customers creates a relationship early on. Additionally, rumor has it that webcrawlers like video more than text and are more likely to place your search engine ranking hire than if you didn’t have it.

A Facebook fan page with a link to join on your site. This allows you to interact in discussion forums with your customers and “fans”. Free to do or you can promote it inexpensively through FB advertising.

A free information product of some type. We have 5 Things You Should Know Before Hiring a Virtual Assistant on our home page. Read Free by Chris Anderson for more information on engaging customers with free, valuable content.

So, are you still advertising in the Yellow Pages (great post from Scott Scratten of UnMarketing about that here) or considering a billboard ad? Reconsider other ways to spend that advertising buck.

I just did a post about “fremium” and how it builds customer loyalty. Of course, there is something in it for the person reading the free content. You may be wondering where you can find these valuable no-cost goodies online. Here are a few that I’ve found valuable:

Personal Branding Magazine. Dan Schawbel, current leader in the personal branding field, offers a free issue of his Personal Branding magazine. If you want to be the Oprah of your industry, this is definitely worth the download.

Jonathan Fields Firefly Manifesto All Roads Lead Home ipod . For anyone who has recently been laid off and is considering making the big leap into working for yourself, Jonathan Fields, author of Career Renegade The Water Horse hd

, has given you a free inspirational kick-in-the-pants ebook full of reasons to not climb back into a career that you hated to begin with. He also helps you redefine what “success” actually means to you.

Chris Brogan and Julien Smith: Trust Economies

. Chris Brogan writes one of the most popular social media blogs. Julien Smith is a popular podcaster on similar topics. They expanded this e-book into their new (and fast-selling) Trust Agents

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which just came out. Informative information about relationship marketing.

Sonia Simone’s free e-classes. Her 10-lesson course on writing newsletters (which also works for blogs) is killer. If you think writing isn’t important, you are WRONG. Whether you are a VA or entrepreneur, improving the content of your written communication can set you apart from your competition.  

Do you have any other e-books, newsletters or giveaways that you love? Let us know below.

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There’s new talk on the street and Chris Anderson, editor of Wired, is responsible. He’s written a book called Free: The Future of a Radical Price

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. Chris is already an expert at identifying trends. His book, The Long Tail, was a huge success and identified niche markets as the next major business pattern. In Free,  he discusses how the reduced cost of technology is making more things free (like software due to open source). But he also addresses giving away free content in an effort to build brand loyalty (which includes your own personal brand as well as business brands).

You see this increasingly with solo practitioners who offer “free reports”, “free e-books”, “free training”. I offer it on LinkedIn in my free slideshare programs. The idea is to garner enough credibility that you can a)  market yourself as an expert and b) offer paid content that your community is willing to buy because they know you routinely have strong content.

There has been much debate over “freemium”.  But with so much great free content online including video and podcasts, awesome Web2.0 applications and open source programs that are free, it would be really difficult to turn back the tide.

Do you agree with the concept of free offerings? Have you used them? Let us know!

You have a product or service and you need to get noticed? What are some of the fastest, most cutting-edge ways to do so. I’ve culled the Web for some tips on how to get noticed and came up with these top 10:

1. Be enthusiastic! Enthusiasm is infectious. You MUST believe in yourself, you product, or your services and share that with anyone you meet. It doesn’t have to be an ongoing sales speech…just express what you do with the love you feel (and if you don’t love it, why are you doing it?).

2. Offer things for free: free newsletters, free e-book chapters, free consultations. Being willing to give some of what you offer away for free allows people to sample you and is also an act of generosity that gets noticed.

3. Blog consistently. If you have a blog (and if you are in business, you should), you need to post consistently or people will lose interest. Be sure you have an RSS feed that people can paste into their readers to follow you.

4. Comment on other blogs. Stay informed and offer real, relevant input. When you comment there is a link to your site. This builds interest and gets you noticed.

5. Make sure your Web site and all marketing materials are sharp and convey the message you want them to.

6. Take care of your customers and let them know you are seeking new ones. Sometimes even your loyal followers forget to mention you. Treat them as the trusted allies they should be.

7. Do something unexpected! Entrepreneur.com has a list of the Top 10 Successful Marketing Stunts to get your creative juices flowing.

8. Get people to interact on your site. Encourage comments, add a poll, or a community forum. If you have a forum elsewhere, advertise it on your site.

9. Get out and meet people in all kinds of places. Don’t just stick to your Chamber meetings. Get involved at digital conferences Pluto’s Blue Note rip Jumper movie

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, BlogHer conventions (if you’re a “her”), personal development seminars The Long Riders dvd and more. Online social networking is a great tool, but it cannot replace personal relationships.

10. Be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Put one foot in front of the other, do great work, be innovative and continue to treat your customers well and business WILL grow!

What tips can you share that have helped you build your client base or market a product?

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