I've found that starting an engaging blog is one of the best marketing tools for acquiring your first 100 customers. It's inexpensive to launch and Google loves indexing high quality blog content.

Create a blog using Wordpress, Tumblr, Squarespace, Blogspot. Start writing articles that help your core targeted audience. You can buy a Wordpress theme like StudioPress for under $100.

I launched the business blog TravelStartups.co in March 2013. I publish a new business article about travel startups every 7-days. My articles are in-depth blog posts about the life of being a travel entrepreneur. I write solely about my experiences both the good and bad and I interview successful travel startup CEOs and founders through a podcast.

In a short amount of time I have built an email newsletter list of 3,200 subscribers.

I have an advisory service that I offer to travel startup founders that costs $695 a month. This is my main product. I have anywhere from 5-10 clients each month. All my clients are readers of my blog. I merchandise my advisory service in the main menu of the blog.

The key to my subscriber growth and readership is that I am authentic in my writing. I go deep and "tell the truth," about entrepreneurial life. I focus on ending each article with a lesson, tip or advice that can help the reader start and grow his travel company.

I focus on creating as much value in the content as I can for the reader.

Your blog should be written directly for your core targeted customer helping them improve their life or business. Your product or service can just sit there and be available to the reader as a soft sell.

The goal of your blog is to build trust with the reader so that then they will have trust in buying your product or service.