9 Advertising Ideas for Your Business

Here are some ways you can market your business both traditionally and online.

1. Radio! Don’t overlook radio ads because they can be inexpensive and effective depending on your plug. You will want to mention your website in the advertisement so people can find more information quickly.

2. Restrooms, Bus Stops, Taxi roofs, and other public places. Short of creating a 400 square foot billboard ad there are many public places that ads are found. Don’t forget local sports teams jerseys!

3. Television. Many cable television stations offer affordable advertising rates for small businesses, especially now as the rates for TV spots have fallen due to computer / internet dominance in the marketing space.

4. Local website advertising. There are a handful of websites that are focused on your geographic area that you can advertise your business in – maybe even for free. Hit those up, as well as other major sites that are focused on your niche. Directory sites are excellent places to get your small business listed – even if you have to pay, due to the importance in Google for sites mentioned in respectable directories.

5. Niche trade shows, conferences. If you aren’t invited, weasel your way into one. Offer to provide free drinks or snacks or something for participants. If your able to go – you must go. More meaningful contacts are made at trade-shows and conferences maybe than anywhere else. The best of the best in your industry are there – you should be too.

6. Email! Adding your signature to every business email and personal email you send out – and your employees send, is one good way to advertise for free. Take it a step further and create ads to send out on opt-in email lists and email newsletters.

7. Charity volunteerism. Align yourself with a local or national charity and do volunteer work and other helpful tasks. Admit that when you see Sean Penn doing charity work – you think, he’s not such a bad guy…  Charity work gives you instant credibility, as well as balances you as a person. You’ll help others and help yourself by volunteering when you have some free time.

8. Twitter. Twitter is rapidly becoming a major marketing tool that businesses all over the world are getting up to speed with. You can find people interested in your products daily in most niches – and contact them without having to email and possibly be labeled a spammer. Right now Twitter is wide open and people are making money with it. Learn all you can about this social media / marketing resource. We’ll have Twitter training courses here shortly.

9. Facebook! Facebook is a networking tool that makes it easy to add friends to your group and send messages to anyone you can reach. Messages can be web pages, photos, videos or many other types of contacts using the applications developers have built for Facebook. Facebook is quickly becoming a marketing freeforall where prices are low and you can target by demographic rather than keywords. Quite an interesting marketing resource to get up to speed with. We’ll have Facebook training courses for you here shortly too!