These days, most advertising opportunities are expensive and fail to work. Having said that, there is one extremely powerful, low-cost, high-return advertising tactic that seems to be producing great results for many businesses.

The tactic: Signs, flyers, and inserts combined with smart guerilla marketing.

Here are some examples:

- Massage Heights is a national massage franchise. When employees are not busy, they will take a sign out to the nearby high-traffic road and hold it up to traffic. The sign invites people in for a one-hour massage at just $39.95. Basically, they get the same exposure as a billboard that costs $5,000 or more per month -- for the cost of an hourly employee.

- Heavenly Cupcakes does the same thing but ramps it up a notch. They hire someone to dress up in a giant pink cupcake suit and hold up a sign directing traffic to their store, which is a couple of streets of the main road in town. For a small investment, they get great exposure and can drive people to their slightly off-the-beaten-path location. Nobody misses this cupcake person!

- Chipotle, a national burrito chain that just opened in town, posts handmade signs at local YMCAs offering free burritos for athletes and their families on certain days of the week. That way, people get into this newly opened store to try out the food and hopefully become loyal customers.

- Our local Chic-Fil-A provides an occasionaly free or discounted lunch to kids at local camps. The kids rave about the food to parents, who can't help but see all the Chic-Fil-A bags and boxes when they pick up their kids from camp. At the same time, this same store offers fund raisers for schools, where on certain nights they bring in the cow and face painters, and give a portion of the evening's revenues to the schools.

- AMC bowling prints coupons for free bowling with a retailer's name on them and leaves them in the retailer. That way, the store or restaurant gets credit for giving away a free game of bowling while AMC gets some great traffic to their lanes.

- A local Caribbean Pie company prints low-cost flyers and leaves them with local hair dressers in exchange for some free pie. Clients are a captive audience and immediately start asking about this company and if their pies are tasty or not.

- Local professional firms -- lawyers, accountants, contractors -- are teaming up with each other when they send out bills. They make a quick insert that promotes their business, and that insert goes into their colleague's bills. In exchange, they do the same for their colleagues. Essentially, everyone expands their lead pool at very low cost.

- Dunkin Donuts offers a deal to Tampa Bay Rays fans that they announce at Tropicana Field: If the Rays win a home game, go into any Dunkin Donut for a free donut. All you have to do is say that the Rays won. No ticket stub needed. Tell me that you would walk away from a free donut -- or get your free donut and not also get a few more things (like coffee and more donuts) once you are in the store.

- A fitness program brings some very nice signs and flyers to clubs to promote its body pump classes. Now, there are millions of fitness programs out there. However, this company gets in the door because it offers these professionally designed marketing materials to stand apart. People see these signs and flyers and think that this program is above and beyond the usual generic stuff. By adding some "Hollywood" to their marketing at low cost, this program is growing nationwide!

Think about how you can get your business more visible with low-cost advertising. The companies above are both large and small, and yet they all are investing their marketing dollars wisely.

Of course, once you join the Profit Growth Club, you get dozens of ideas like this, all organized in a system to grow your business profitably, and all with 24/7 support. We will even review your marketing materials for you and give you our advice free of charge, just because you are a member!