One of the key essentials when it comes to making you and your business successful is advertising.

Unfortunately most of us cannot afford to advertise during the super bowl with commercials, or place digital signs along Times Square.

Beyond the mailers and business cards, there is another way to get your name and product circulating among the masses.

The best part of it is, it will cost you next to nothing, and your customer will be doing all of the work for you.

A personal story ...
When I was in the mortgage business, I found out by accident one of the best ways to advertise myself and my business.

I have always found it to be in good practice to show my appreciation to my customers by sending them a token of my appreciation by sending them a thank you gesture of some kind, once the loan was closed.

As time went on, and I began to make a little more money, I had a few extra bucks to spend on my high end customers to show them my appreciation for doing business with me.

Not that I was spending a fortune on my customers, just a few extra dollars on every loan closing, it only seemed fair.

Then something extraordinary happened.

I had a couple who had just settled on their first home. Around the time that they had just moved into their new home, I sent them both a gift basket to their respected places of employment.

When the gift baskets arrived, they were thrilled to death. Of course everyone in their office was curious and wanted to know where the gift basket came from and who sent it, and of course my customers were happy to tell them all about me, and all I had done for them.

This lead to many questions from the on lookers. A few of their co-workers just so happened to be in the market for a mortgage, and they asked if they could have my information, which was happily surrendered.

Think about it, when someone at your office receives flowers, balloons, or a gift basket, aren't you curious to know who sent them? Most of us are.

From this one gesture alone, I ended up closing two more loans. And of course, when those two loans closed, I did the same thing with the gift basket, and it had the same effect.

It then dawned on me that I could really make this technique work for me.

Not only did I send my customers gift baskets upon the closing of their loan, I would send one when the loan was approved and when their appraisal came in. This gave me three attempts at getting the attention of their entire office.

Definitely think about doing something along these lines. There is no better, or cheaper way of getting the attention of a whole lot of people at once. Trust me, this technique works, it worked for me, and it can work for you!