Beware of promotions and opportunities that address a large group of people outside your customer base. They tend to attract a huge audience of people that aren t interested in your product or site, and instead cost you money and time, especially if you re paying for your bandwidth. Get your name out there any way you can. Almost everyone knows their name and a large percentage of Web shoppers have purchased from them. Spend some time at Amazon to see how they sell.
Public relations is something that most companies and small Web sites overlook.
It s cheap if you do it yourself, and can be much more effective than most paid marketing programs. You need to contact the editors at local or national publications that would cover a Web site like yours. It helps if you have a story to tell as well. A friend of mine put together a car enthusiast Web site for his new Eclipse and one of the major car magazines listed it for free in an article. You can t pay for marketing like this.