If you want to find customers in a recession you will probably be searching for creative promotion methods, and I'm guessing it will be even better if there is a plan that's available to anyone with a rock bottom budget - or even for those in need of completely free advertising.
The best way I have come across to get website traffic, without a doubt, is Article Marketing.
It's free, the prospects are targeted and they are looking for whatever product or services you are promoting, and what's even better, unlike an expensive month-long advert in the national press, the customers keep coming month on month. I have sites I haven't actively advertised for more than 4 years - yet targeted visitors arrive over and over again.
You really don't need to be (or hire) a professional with website promotion tricks, although if you are able, that's great. But you do need to use article marketing well. Even though you will get SOME traffic, with a haphazard approach, it won't be the best you can obtain for the time spent.
Some people may be afraid to even look at article marketing because they fear they're not "literate" enough. This should NOT be a barrier. Of course any submission needs to be correctly punctuated and free from spelling mistakes, because that will reflect on you and your business as "sloppy". However a basic spell-checker, in Word or even the one in your browser, will make the amendments you need.
If you still feel unable to produce content for your articles, you can hire authors to write them for you at a surprisingly low cost and, if you pick a good author you can end up with excellent work. Tip - give authors a small project to work on first, as some are better than others. Just one of my initial mistakes!
Another alternative is to obtain low-cost PLR articles and rewrite them yourself. Please note that th rewriting step is very important; it is what puts your own personality and stamp to articles that other people may already have purchased.
So having dismissed concerns about being unable to produce good content, you're well on the way to starting to use article marketing to get free traffic. It really can be that easy.
My original attempts were successful even with a few "raw" articles I'd written myself without considering any of the finer points. But for just a little extra thought, considering a few more tips and tricks, I could have done so much better.
Some of the article marketing tips that can help you get better results are:
- How to make up your mind what keywords to target?
- Are you trying to get traffic to sites that already have too much competition?
- Which article sites are the best ones to submit to?
- Should you put forward your work to many sites or just a few - is more always better?
- What is the best way to write articles?
- How to choose the best title for your article?
- How to beat writer's block?
- What about Google's duplicate content penalty?
Formatting your articles for the convenience of the people who will download them
The REAL benefit of Article Marketing, that most people aren't even aware of.
Consider some of these tips and you'll be streets ahead of most article marketers who don't even know the questions to ask.