There is no "free" advertising that is effective. Advertising effectively is basically a numbers game. The more people you can reach the better are your chances of getting a bite. You can either spend the time reaching those people yourself or you can pay someone to do it for you. How much is your time worth to you and would it be more beneficial for you to spend that time doing something else? How much time do you spend clicking for credits a month, posting on classified ad boards, networking on various social media sites, ect. Do you consider your time to be worth $5/hr. That is far less than minimum wage in the US. So multiply the time you estimate you spend on advertising by whatever value you place on your time and suddenly that s-builder coop or whatever doesn't seem so expensive after all.
That is too easy of an answer though and actually the question isn't right. Maybe a better question would be which methods of advertising (free or paid) produce the best results. And, to be honest, I think the most affective way is to develop a system that incorporates both. Such as you use free safelists and classified ad boards to draw people onto a page that invites the person to fill out the form for more information or you could offer a free gift. This is linked to list manager (this could be free but eventually I believe you will want to pay for this service) where you can have a series a messages set to be sent over a period of time.
It's not so much weather you are advertising for free or paying for the service as it is how you are advertising. Spend some of your time to develop a couple good advertising systems.
less
There is no "free" advertising that is effective. Advertising effectively is basically a numbers game. The more people you can reach the better are your chances of getting a bite. You can either spend the time reaching those people yourself or you can pay someone to do it for you. How much is your time worth to you and would it be more beneficial for you to spend that time doing something else? How much time do you spend clicking for credits a month, posting on classified ad boards, ...more