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All businesses should budget for advertising. Many small business owners make the mistake of using whatever funds are left over to advertise. Instead, create a monthly budget for advertising and find inexpensive ways to reach your target customers and find new electrical leads. Here are five of the best cost effective methods of advertising for small business.
Buy A Sandwich Board
Drive foot traffic into your store with a sandwich board. You can have a custom one made for under $100. Alternatively, you can buy an erasable board and create new eye catching ads as you see fit. Use bright colors and fun messages to draw people in. Buying a sandwich board is a cheap and effective way to advertise for small business.
Hire A Teenager
Offer a local student or teenager a chance to make some easy cash to help them afford the cost of living. For $50, you can hire someone to hand out fliers or coupons at a local sporting event. You could also have them hold a sign near a busy intersection during rush hour. All it will cost you is the price of the sign and a nominal fee for the day. Hiring a teenager to hold a sign is an easy way to gain at least one new customer per day. This is a common form of advertising for small business that you may not have considered. Give it a shot.
Cross Promote
Find a business nearby that will cross promote with you. Ask them to hang a flyer for your business and offer to do the same for them. You can take it a step further. Offer coupons to both establishments. Try to find a business that make sense as a partner. A hardware store and an ice cream shop is not a good pair. However, a pizza parlor and a liquor store makes sense. Cross promotion is an inexpensive way of advertising for small business that helps form business connections at the same time.
Direct Mail
Direct mail will cost you some money, but it is worth the investment. If a coupon mailer service is available in your area, send out coupons. This puts the name of your business right into customers’ hands. Marketing studies have shown that sales have increased 400% when direct mail was used. Sending out coupons also has the benefit of being a source of advertising you can track. Require customers hand in coupons so you can see they are effective. There are many reasons for email marketing, but if you are advertising for a small business, consider direct mail.
Use The Internet
There are so many inexpensive advertising options on the internet. You can write a blog to drive traffic to your website. You can advertise for free on message boards and online classifieds. If your budget can afford it, you consider the Facebook advertising cost to see a return on your investment. If you have a little more money, you can invest in pay-per-click advertising such as Google AdWords. Start off small by using free resources on the internet. However, do not be afraid to pay for advertising as well. The internet is an excellent resource for advertising a small business because you can scale the cost to your needs.
Use Little Known Resources
One of the greatest low-cost advertising tips we have seen for those advertising for small business is to make use of little known resources. Just what are these resources, you ask? It is a little known fact, but many radio stations, newspapers and magazines have their own marketing specialists that will help you devise the most effective advertising strategy possible. These people can provide you useful demographic information. In addition, they can also give you helpful money-saving tips for ways to cut advertising costs for producing ads. This is a huge advantage that you should definitely look into if you can.
Advertising for small business should not be an afterthought. Identify your target customers and create a strategy to reach them. Make a budget for advertising and try different marketing methods. Use the tips in this post to stretch your advertising budget. These cost effective methods of advertising for small business are sure to bring new customers to your store.
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