Curious, Having started several business over the years, both traditional and online, one thing I have learned is that FREE is the most powerful word in marketing and advertising. But when is FREE really FREE is the question. We have all seen the FREE deals where you get bombarded with upsells, which is OK, but less effective than it use to be in my experience as the market is saturated with all these free ebook offers. Like most, we all research the most cost effiective advertising mediums to utilize for our businesses, but what is cost effective when it comes to advertising? Having wasted tens of thousands over the years listening to advertising salespeople, from YellowPages, Newspaper, Radio, TV and direct marketing, not everything works as promoted. Lesson learned, you really have to do a lot of marketing research to avoid wasting your money. Referrals are the only real cost effective means of advertising, but how to get your customers to refer others is the secret. I have learned that by thanking your customers with free or low cost incentives to show them that you appreciate their business is best way to cultivate referrals. I have been using this strategy for years, and nothing will recessionproof your business better than the Pay It Forward, Give To Receive and Care To Share strategy. Creating Reciprocal Referrals with fellow local businesses is also recommended, and the same FREE Incentives work business to business as they do business to customer. In a recession this severe, what is everyone looking for? They are looking to save money, plus earn extra money in most cases, so never has the timing been better to offer FREE incentives to your customers and fellow business owners. As example, I have used vacation certificates worth several hundred dollars which I purchased in volume for under $10.00 each. The perceived value was over a thousand, so these were a tremendous incentive, and I simply asked my customers to refer one other person they knew to justify the incentive, so this is my Give To Receive concept and it worked great. How much does your business spend to generate a new customer, I would bet it is more than $10.00. I have also been evaluating a FREE $100K Legacy Life Benefit I offer to my customers, and with millions who have no family protection plans, this is a huge incentive worth several thousand dollars. This looks to be the most appreciated of all incentives I have researched, besides it is connected to a non-profit organization which helps others while helping us build our business referrals and if you choose, helping your favorite fundrasier or charity, so a win, win, win situation for all involved. There is no better incentive than showing your customers you care enough to share a benefit which protects their family, especially when so many cannot afford this protection or are unemployed and under employed which is over 15% of the population. My latest researched incentive is even more unique given it fits so well in our current economy. A FREE $100.00 incentive just to register with a new Social Business Commerce Network similar to LinkedIn. Does LinkenIn pay you to join? Does LinkedIn pay you to refer others? This is a first, so I care enough to share, and given every business is looking to increase their traffic to website and sales. Now for the best part, you can create a huge network of like minded business people in your network, and if you have a product or service to introduce to the network at a special price, this is a great incentive program to build any business and create your own reciprocal referral network, and all for FREE. Success to all,