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Need visibility for your product or service? Here are a few high-impact strategies.

The absence of deep pockets, we entrepreneurs must be extraordinarily innovative in order to get attention for our products and services. Particularly when you're starting out, it's important to pick a few high-impact avenues for generating positive buzz. The key is to pick a manageable amount of tactics, those that you can financially support on an ongoing basis. Know your strengths, and capitalize on what you excel at. Need inspiration? Consider these tactics:

1. Vault.com was started in 1996 by Mark Oldman, 31, Samer Hamadeh, 31, and H.S. Hamadeh, 29. The New York City company's mission is to help professionals advance their careers through "insider" career information, online networking, online courses and job listings.

Vault.com saw its hits double to 5 million per month when the founders pulled off a stunt that got them more than just ink in the national media. When a New York investment firm banned its employees from accessing Vault.com, the founders dispatched a billboard truck to Wall Street that read "Bitch about your boss," and the media was alerted. The company saw its hits double within the span of one week. The total cost: $2,100 to rent the truck and billboard for three days. Their new billboard truck will say "The truth is in the vault."

The three partners have become masterful at creating low-cost publicity by using workplace research and surveys. After employees at major companies were fired for improper Web surfing and e-mailing, Vault.com conducted an in-depth survey to gauge reaction to the issue. The survey has landed the company more than 200 mentions in some of the world's largest media. Talk about ingenious advertising.

2. Ramon Ray, a 27-year-old small-business technology analyst and consultant in New York City, has built a successful business with zero spent on advertising by creating content for his own Web site and nine other business-to-business sites (that number should be 15 by late summer). Ray's first site name was less than inspiring—it was a long, generic address that was a subset of another site. A simple domain name change—to www.smallbiztechnology.com—made all the difference for Ray and his hit count. "I was thinking how stupid it sounded to say [the previous] domain name," he recalls. "It was way too corny and unprofessional. When you're getting serious, you've got to have a serious name, not some Mickey Mouse/Jiminy Cricket thing like I had."

So how does Ray promote his site with no money? He writes content for non-competing small-business sites that are complementary to his business interests. The sites get to add fresh content from an expert, and Ray gets massive exposure for his own site. He also calls into radio programs that discuss small-business issues and participates in online discussion forums to garner lots of hits and free publicity.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Kimberly McCall

Kimberly McCall is director of marketing at Avance Care, a primary care provider offering convenient, cost-effective healthcare services. She is responsible for all marketing strategies to build, preserve, and enhance the Avance brand.

LinkedIn: Kimberly McCall