Know your target audience. Who are your most important customers, clients or prospects, and why? For instance, if you have a business that sells family friendly products, wouldn't it be a nice gesture to give away a free ice cream coupon for the local ice cream shop. In turn the ice cream shop could give away a discount coupon for your establishment or another company which would give their customers a coupon for you. One hand rubs the other, a family rarely buys just one ice cream cone so the ice cream shop benefits from you advertising for them. In return someone is advertising for you, keep in mind a 10% discount to a customer is better than no customer at all. An additional benefit is that by giving away something as a surprise, will make you look like a hero.

In a very short time, I will be setting up something called the "Howdy Partner Network" as part of a bigger project. This network will be an alliance of many companies that are interested in sharing advertising. If you are interested in being part of the network, feel free to give me a call.