Fast, cheap, and out of control: how to promote your business, project, or nonprofit

21st century technology has given us the tools to connect with millions of people all over the world, without spending a lot of money and without having to be a communications or technology expert.

You can blog, you can create Web sites, you can contribute to forums and social media communities.

You can subscribe to a ten-week e-tutorial on 21st-century marketing.

What do you need to do all this? An Internet connection, a halfway decent computer, a few resources for things like cheap professional photography.

Oh, and there's one more thing that comes in handy:

Way back in the 1980s, a lot of folks put the idea out that writing was dead. (Of course, they did this with . . . writing.) As the theory went, we were devolving into a kind of medieval society that only knew how to look at images, except instead of stained-glass windows in cathedrals, we got our pictures from flashy television ads.

But some of us could see something different. There was something new called the Internet. It was just words back then, no World Wide Web. But we could see how powerful those words could be. They moved people to action. And a single writer, if she was good enough, could move hundreds, then thousands of readers.

It was obvious that some day we'd be able to easily reach millions of human beings all over the world.

Becoming a strong writer isn't all that easy. Learning to write well is like learning to play music well. It takes time and dedication, and the knack comes easier to some than others. But any of our lives (and businesses) can be enriched by learning something about the craft and art of writing.

Then back in 1999, just when we thought we had a handle on this Internet thing, we had another smart bomb dropped on us by the inimitable Seth Godin. He neatly pointed out all the stuff that was happening almost too quickly to see.

We were being overwhelmed by sales messages, so we started to tune them out. Tivo let us skip over TV commercials. And we had a "mental Tivo" that filtered out the rest.

Godin reminded us we could actually entice people into wanting to hear from us. But we had to provide something of value, we had to provide it up front, and we might want to give some of it away for free. We had to create relationships with customers, and that conversation went both ways.

We didn't talk at our customers any more. We engaged with them.

Godin talked about turning strangers (in other words, the entire world) into friends, then friends into customers, then customers into crazy loyal fans who tattoo your logo on their foreheads. Or at least their biceps.

The theories are exciting and cool, but what does all this translate to?

Here are a few of the easier possibilities.

(Don't get too stressed if someone is already doing one of these in your business space. You're always going to have competition. Find a niche, find an angle, or just find a unique voice. Find a way to do it cooler and better.)

Print or email newsletters. They have to be interesting and they have to be good. They can't be self-serving (or at least be subtle about it). But well-written information that benefits your customers will create warm-chocolate-cookie feelings that help customers like you, trust you, and enjoy buying from you.

(Here are two posts I wrote to give you a big jump start:
Email Marketing: How Not to Look Like a Dirty Rotten Spammer
What is an Autoresponder and Do You Need One?)

Blogs. Once again, they have to be interesting and they have to be good. What could you riff on every day that would help your prospects and customers? If you're a real estate agent, could you start a blog on relocating to your city?

Articles and tip sheets. There might not be something new to say every day about your business—that's ok. Think about publishing useful articles. If you're a tire store, how about a free PDF (downloadable from your web site) on everything there is to know about snow tires?

Static Web sites. There's still a place for these! You don't need to be a developer or an expert to build a strong Web presence. Click the Contact Me link below my picture (upper left side of the page) if you want to throw around some some ideas!

Squidoo lenses! Squidoo can be a powerful tool to make your other marketing materials work harder. They're easy to build—but solid content and a few special tricks will make them much more effective. Contact me if you'd like some help beefing up your lenses!

Plant a Web garden. You can use a variety of Web 2.0 sites to circulate your content around the Internet. This is a great strategy to support a static site (always link back to your own site, if you have one) and generate lots of Google goodness. Here's a blog post I made on tending a Web garden.

These are some of my favorites. Let me know about yours in the guestbook below!

Copyblogger
I was a fan of this A-list blog for about a year before I became fortunate enough to start writing for them. Solid content and good writing advice, with a focus on writing commercially viable content for the Web. An important resource for anyone interested in 21st-century marketing.

bSeth's Blog/b
http://sethgodin.typepad.com
I get more ideas from Seth's blog than I can possibly use, which is kind of great.

bCommon Errors in English/b
www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/
Not a blog, but an immensely useful reference site when you're trying to figure out if it's ibackward/i or ibackwards/i, and whether it's ok to use the word iimpactful/i.

bMerriam-Webster online/b
a href=">www.m-w.com
A very handy resource. This site is free, or you can subscribe to the excellent Collegiate dictionary online for $15 a year, which I think is a terrific bargain.

Email marketing is the backbone of permission marketing for most folks, and if you do it right, it can be an amazing tool to create more loyalty, trust and referral business.

Done wrong and your hard work just ends up clogging somebody's spam filters. No fun at all.

For more about how to create email marketing and email newsletters that work, check out my post on Email Marketing: How Not to Be a Dirty Rotten Spammer.

I've also got a free ten-part course on creating email newsletter content. You can sign up here: Email and Content Creation Class

The good news is, I have a great client list of wonderful folks who I'm helping with their marketing. The bad news is, it's kind of hard for new people to hire me, as I'm currently booked about 8-10 weeks out.

Right now, I'm mainly working on creating autoresponders (those are predetermined sequences of messages for your email newsletter) and "thank you" content to encourage folks to subscribe to your newsletter or blog. If you'd like some help with something like that, you can reach me at remarkable [dot] questions [at] gmail [dot] com. If you need someone in a quicker time frame, I may be able to put you in touch with a colleague.

The best way to get in touch with me or find out lots more about what I do is to check out the remarkable communication blog, which talks about all kinds of ways you can form better connections with your customers.

Finally, I invite you to subscribe to a free newsletter on improving your communication. It starts with a ten-part marketing tool kit to create marketing communication that is more personal, relevant, remarkable and powerful.

I absolutely never sell or rent my email list, and I won't spam you to death, either. Cross my heart.

I just put together a new site on Wetpaint to explore the wonderful goodness of permission email marketing, also known as email newsletters or email marketing.

Permission Email Marketing

The site is brand-new as of October 5, 2008, so I'll be adding lots of goodies and getting fellow contributors to weigh in. If you'd like to join the fun, you can email me at remarkable [dot] questions [at] gmail [dot] com and I'll add you to the contributor list!

Want more ways to reward the great lenses you find on Squidoo? Check out lensroll.com, a "Digg"-like site just for Squidoo lenses. You can "roll" your favorite lenses and find great new stuff that other readers have voted for.

If you think this lens is rollworthy, Click here to go right to it on lensroll.com.

Whether or not you roll this lens, check out lensroll.com to find great lenses and recommend great lenses.