Every business must have some sort of advertising. Conventionally, this has been fairly expensive, but it need not be, if you are advertising over the Internet. This is good for the majority of Internet marketers, as most Internet businesses have a small to non-existent advertising budget.
Whichever kind of business you have, you ought to think about promoting it on and off line. I find it easier to reflect on the off line aspect first, because there are fewer options than with on line advertising and they can often be dismissed. For most businesses, off line advertising typically comes down to newspaper adverts, sign-written vehicles, free ads and handbills.
These types of advertising are very valuable for local shops and local businesses such as builders, plumbers, poodle parlours et cetera, but they are relatively expensive. Here are a few unusual suggestions for off line marketing:
Try to give something away. This may appear to be expensive, but it does not have to be. For example, if you run a poodle parlour, you could write a leaflet on how to wash your dog or how to get rid of ticks. Promote this give-away on line, in your shop window and in the newspaper. Tempt people to come into your shop to pick one up.
Ask your local papers if they accept press releases. If they do obtain details of preferred length and subject matter and send them a press release whenever you take on new staff, win an award or start advertising a new product or service. Press releases should be free.
Next time their is a local event, hire a booth and give a demonstration of what you do; take a survey of what you want to know; and hand out flyers. Stalls at Girl Guide Jamborees or Bring-And Buy sales are very cheap and you may see thousands of people in person. Then hand out a press release out about the event.
Offer to donate a prize at a local charity event and / or have the tickets made as well. With your name on, of course. Hundreds or people will see you name associated with a good cause.
Run a competition with a prize. Run it in the local paper or from your shop. As a building firm, we on one occasion supplied a man Friday free for a day. It ran over a three week period and every week we asked for five trivia questions to be answered. The local paper ran it free of charge.
Thousands of people entered and our cost was a day’s salary. An old widow won him and she had him doing little odd chores about the house all day while she made him tea and sandwiches and had a good old natter. I think it made her year, but it got us a great deal of goodwill and good publicity.
You could offer badges, coupons and novelties as lesser prizes
Send out Christmas cards and promotional calendars to past and potential clients. A calendar will keep your name before someone’s eyes all year around.
You could offer free talks on the key features of your business. If you could talk at the community hall for thirty minutes, you could take questions and answers later on. Try the local Womens’ Institute.
Some of these strategies can be used to promote an online business or website too.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on quite a few topics, but is at present involved with Marketing Your Website. If you would like to know more or check out some great deals, please go to our website at The Best Sales And Marketing Strategy.