There are so many ways available now a days to promote your products. This can be free or paid.
Now when it comes to paid promotions, usually people are trying to avoid it at the first place and start looking for the options of free promotions. This free promotions can be telling about your products to your social networking site, professional site, group chats etc, but I don’t think it will even cover 0.1 % of the market by this way until and unless your product is rock solid, unique and highly in demand. You may say that “I have asked all my friends and relatives to keep on sharing it over their social networking place” but do you really think all others except you have ample amount of time to do that? Or they are so eager to promote your product like anything. In many cases the answer is “No”.
I believe if your product is unique and there is no other competitor then you may rely on free promotions but in case your product is not unique or excellent in quality then better to think about the paid promotions.
Lets take an example: Facebook, very well know social networking site or a product by Mark Zuckerberg. Was there a paid promotions when it was started? The answer is “No”.
Is there a paid promotions now? The answer is “Yes” even though people are using Facebook, still paid promotions now?
Even there are few other products, which haven’t done any promotions still capturing a big chunk of market such as “Xiaomi MI”. No big adds only quality products based on the customer’s need and in budget.
Alright, now which promotion is effective, paid or free? The answer is simple, if the product is unique, excellent in quality and filling market the demand then the best marking is when someone hear about your product straight from the horse’s mouth.