{"id":3003,"date":"2025-02-28T10:58:47","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T05:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.anupjose.com\/blog\/?p=3003"},"modified":"2025-03-09T12:36:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T07:06:05","slug":"how-i-got-5-lakh-worth-of-advertising-for-free-a-lesson-in-organic-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anupjose.com\/blog\/how-i-got-5-lakh-worth-of-advertising-for-free-a-lesson-in-organic-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Got \u20b95 Lakh Worth of Advertising for Free \u2013 A Lesson in Organic Marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Advertisements are always an expensive affair, but with a bit of creativity, you can get them for free. Let me share an old experience of mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I built <strong>Makeyourcards<\/strong>, I had no idea how to market it. Some friends suggested SEO, but I wasn\u2019t confident about it at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What Was Makeyourcards?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Makeyourcards was an online portal where customers could send <strong>personalized greeting cards that resembled traditional postal letters<\/strong>. At the time, there was no similar online service offering this kind of experience, making it a <strong>fresh and intriguing<\/strong> idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Back then, running ads would have cost me <strong>\u20b93,000\u2013\u20b95,000 per month<\/strong>, and even if I spent that, there was no guarantee of results. <em>(Later, when I started my own company, I did SEO myself and saw the results, which finally made me believe in it.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s when I approached <strong>Vanitha Magazine<\/strong> with my portal. They loved the idea and published an article about it. Only later did I realize that if I had <strong>paid<\/strong> for such an advertisement, it would have cost me around <strong>\u20b95 lakh!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I got it for free <strong>because the portal had a unique concept<\/strong>\u2014something that caught their attention and had the potential to attract their audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Lesson in Organic Marketing<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Back then, we had only magazines, newspapers, and traditional media for marketing. But today, the opportunities are <strong>100 times greater<\/strong> with <strong>online media and influencers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These media platforms and influencers are looking for just two things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Money<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Content that attracts their followers<\/strong><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>If you don\u2019t have money, you need to create something <strong>unique and engaging<\/strong>\u2014something that naturally grabs their attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s not enough to <strong>tell<\/strong> people that your product is different; they must be able to <strong>see<\/strong> it for themselves. Either they should <strong>find<\/strong> you, or you should <strong>find a way to reach them<\/strong> in a way that makes them want to feature you. If done right, you can get free promotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I talk about <strong>uniqueness<\/strong>, think about <strong>Biryani<\/strong>\u2014just adding an extra ingredient won\u2019t make it unique. It requires careful observation, creativity, and proper execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Final Thought<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This experience taught me that <strong>creativity can replace money in marketing<\/strong> if used the right way. The media and influencers are always looking for fresh, engaging content. If your idea is truly unique and valuable, they will come to you\u2014just like Vanitha Magazine did for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advertisements are always an expensive affair, but with a bit of creativity, you can get them for free. Let me share an old experience of mine. When I built Makeyourcards, I had no idea how to market it. Some friends suggested SEO, but I wasn\u2019t confident about it at the time. What Was Makeyourcards? Makeyourcards<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169,112],"tags":[116,114,100],"class_list":{"0":"post-3003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-case-studies","8":"category-marketing","9":"tag-marketing","10":"tag-obserations","11":"tag-thoughts"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anupjose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anupjose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anupjose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anupjose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anupjose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.anupjose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3005,"href":"https:\/\/www.anupjose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3003\/revisions\/3005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anupjose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anupjose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anupjose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anupjose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}