Free Marketing: 101 Low and No Cost Ways to Grow Your Business Online and Off

The beauty of this book is that it's really easy to read. The author structured the book around busy professionals who have more to do than they have time to do it in. He even says in the Introduction that the book isn't meant to be read cover to cover. So if you're in a hurry you can still learn a lot by picking up the book for just a few minutes at a time.

There are 101 strategies, and each one gets its own chapter. Some chapters are less than a page. Others are several pages long. All told, there's a lot of information in this book.

"Free Marketing" will be most useful to anyone who works in the marketing industry, or is in a role that requires them to market their organization's brand, product, or message. Whether you work for a small start up or a large, global organization, you're going to find a wealth of good ideas in this book. Small business owners and those of you working for a non-profit on a shoestring budget will find the tactics in this book especially valuable.

Jim Cockrum is considered to be one of the most trusted marketers on the Internet. He's sold millions of dollars in product and services online, and has helped thousands of others start and grow successful businesses. He's appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Men's Health, Entrepreneur, and on eBay radio. He's also donating 100 percent of the sales of this book to charity.

So, keep listening to learn an easy way to get customers talking about your brand, how to quickly respond to negative comments about your company online, and to hear a few tips to help your next online video go viral.

"Free Marketing" is divided into three main sections. The first 32 chapters focus on getting found online and learning how to manage your online reputation. Chapters 33 through 77 cover how to build trust and grow your circle of influence.

Chapter 78 through to the end outline the foundations you need to stay relevant and interesting to your audience.

It makes sense to start with the first few chapters, which cover managing your online reputation. This is the reputation a person or organization gains through information posted about them online. So it's what your customers say about your company in their blog posts, what your clients are tweeting about you, and the discussion people are having on Facebook about your new product launch.

It doesn't matter if you're a sole proprietor business owner, a freelance service professional, or the head of marketing for a large organization, knowing how to manage your online reputation is essential these days. Just one unhappy customer with Internet savvy can spread his criticism to literally thousands of other people online.

What can you do about it? Well, the author has some creative ideas. He says what you need to do first is find easy ways to get your customers to say positive things about your business. If you do have some negative views about you floating around the web, this can help turn the tide.

One idea we liked was to make it easy for your customers to leave feedback. Have an Internet-connected laptop or iPad in your lobby or waiting room. Let your customers know you offer free Internet access. All you ask is that they tell their friends about their experience with you on Facebook, Twitter, or through email. If you have customers waiting in a lobby or browsing through a store, this is an easy way to get them talking about your organization online.

So that's one idea to help generate some useful feedback about your organization. What do you do if some unhappy customers have spread their criticism online? Unfortunately, the author says, negative comments usually get more attention than positive ones. It's really important that you regularly monitor the Internet, so you know when people are discussing you or your product.

Now, you may be thinking that you don't have enough time to do this. But, the good news is that you don't need a lot of time. You can set up a Google Alert that will notify you every day, or even every minute, whenever your name, product, or organization is mentioned online.

You can set up lots of different Google Alerts to help you play defense on your reputation. You could monitor the web for a particular client you suspect might have a negative comment, a journalist you gave a bad interview to, or even your website domain name. Google sends you an email every time one of your keywords or key names is mentioned online. This lets you hop on the Internet to respond to negative comments immediately.

What else will you learn from this first section? Like the entire book, these first few chapters are packed full of useful information. You'll learn how to turn negative customer experiences into positive ones, why you should encourage your customers to complain, and how to use your expertise to create compelling content that gets your customers talking about you online. And, the author gives us plenty of real-life examples that show how he applied these strategies with his own clients.

One particular chapter that will be enlightening for any organization selling a product is chapter five, titled "Insane Refund Policy Profits." Here, the author tells us what happened with a past client, a small eBay seller who sold very expensive collectables.

These rare items were hard to replace, and they sometimes got damaged during transit. This client's feedback score was dropping because he was haggling back and forth with his customers about refunds.

The author advised him to implement the most generous refund policy he could possibly imagine. And, the client listened, even though he felt crazy for doing it.

After he implemented this policy, though, his sales went through the roof, his profits improved, and his reputation was restored. All because he gave his customers that extra control in the sale.

Even if you can't rewrite your organization's refund policy, you might be able to amend it to give customers a little more freedom and control. It might seem counterintuitive, but being more generous in this way could increase your profits and reputation.

Starting in chapter 11, the author covers social media marketing. He discusses how long your Tweets really need to be, how long your online videos should be, and why you should always strive to keep your paragraphs as short as possible when you're talking to your customers online.

There's also a very thorough section on search engine optimization. If you've ever wondered how to get your website ranked better with Google, you'll find out everything you need to know here.

There's some great advice in chapter twenty-eight. Here, the author talks about how you should relate to the media to gain exposure for your organization.

First, the author says that instead of trying to establish relationships with media outlets in general, you should instead focus on building relationships with key reporters and writers within the media organization you're interested in. You could think of this as quality versus quantity.

Once you've identified the key players, then start a relationship with them online. Follow them on Twitter, and like them on Facebook. You could even set up a Google Alert for their name. When you see them talking or Tweeting about an issue that you know something about, talk back to them and get a conversation started.

What does this do? Well, it makes you more than just a name or a voicemail to be returned. Reporters and writers are busy. The more you help them, and make an effort to have a relationship with them, the more they're going to remember you. The author says later that "people respond to people." The more you do to relate to people on a personal level, the more they're going to connect with and remember you.

The author spends a lot of time talking about the importance of online videos. He says that not having video about your business or organization isn't an option anymore. At least, not if you want to succeed in the years to come.

The golden egg that everyone wants is to have their own video go viral. When something goes viral, it means the number of people who see it keeps snowballing because they pass it on to people they know. To help your video go viral, or at least get it passed along, there are a few strategies you have to follow.

The author says one way to get attention for your video and help it go viral is to create useful content for the audience. And, it needs to have a clear call to action. For instance, you could teach people a new skill, and then tell them to sign up for your mailing list so they can receive more free information.

The author says you need to have 24 videos up on your site. You might shake your head at this precise number, but according to the author, the number of videos follows a very specific formula he calls "the 10x10x4 formula." And, each one has a purpose.

To get started creating useful online videos for your website, start by writing down the top 10 most frequently asked questions about your product or service. Next, write down the top 10 questions a potential buyer should be asking you about your product or service.

Now you should make a short video for each of these 20 questions. Each video should be 30 seconds to three minutes long. You also need to record four other videos. Each of these four videos will have a different marketing theme.

We need to add an important caveat here. Thinking up and producing 24 videos might work for some people and some businesses, but not for others. If you can only think of four relevant frequently asked questions for your own business, then forcing yourself to come up with more will likely just waste your time, and your customers'.

This is a point the author doesn't address in the book. According to him, this formula is proven. But, he doesn't provide any statistics or explanation about why having exactly 24 videos is so important. So it's probably best to use your own judgment here.

One of the best ways to build your brand and market your business is through email. And you can see why the author loves email marketing so much. After all, it's easy to construct an email, and it's free. For marketing professionals and business owners on a shoestring budget, this is hard to beat.

But, how can you make email work to market yourself or your business? We get plenty of strategies and resources spread out over several chapters.

When you first get started, you need to create a series of short, powerful, and informative messages that will be sent out in a series over time. Each email should be seventy to eighty percent informational, and twenty to thirty percent sales-oriented. Ideally, the first few emails will have no selling in them at all.

Your email series should be focused on topics that your target customers will be most interested in.

This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to email marketing. There is a lot of really useful information here. So if you want to learn exactly what you need to do, step by step, to set up a successful email campaign, you get it here.

So, what's our last word on "Free Marketing?"

It's not hard for us to say we loved it. On every page the author conveys his excitement about these concepts and strategies. Because of his enthusiasm for helping businesses grow, you can't help but get excited too. Even after a few short chapters, you'll be chomping at the bit to start using some of these great ideas in your own business.

There are plenty of real-life examples throughout the book that show how effective these tactics can be. True, some of his ideas lack statistical evidence to back them up, but the book will still be really useful for most readers. Just make sure you use your own judgment before implementing these strategies. If something doesn't seem to fit your own situation, don't do it.

"Free Marketing," by Jim Cockrum, is published by John Wiley and Sons.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.