Small Business Advertising (pay, startup, real estate, investment)

[UpperPeninsulaRon]

What works in small business advertising? Should you go TV, radio, print, or just good old fashioned word-of-mouth?

[poconoproud]

Good question. I make our brochures myself on my com****r, and we leave those in key places. We also give out a lot of business cards. Word of mouth is the best we can hope for. I also designed my own website, which is advertised on print media. Now the client has a place to learn more about our company, and a way to communicate with us. I can't afford t.v. or radio, and my competition isn't advertising there either. My competion is in real estate guides, and they are expensive to advertise in - so we opted for (and got lucky to find) a billboard a short distance before our office. What types of advertising have you done or considered? What ever you do, ask all who call you where they got your name, so you can pinpoint what ads are working for you and which are a waste of money.

[jhlcomp]

it all depends on the type of business you have. What is your business?

We have found the web and word of mouth to be the best for us - just depends on your business.

[Sage of Sagle]

Without a whole lot more info about your business, it's all speculation.

However, there are some paradigms that hold true. Good PR is worth 3-4 times what you spend on paid advertising..the web gives you viral marketing you'd never get from passing out cards, and investing your time can replace some startup capital but at some point is a huge diminished return when you want to focus on business growth.

TV (actually, all forms of video) are the MOST powerful form of communication. However, it's also your largest investment to be effective, so it's something you should discuss at length with your PR director or advertising/MarCom manager.

[richson]

in my opinion Internet advertising like have Website , have many links in free Forum or less prise AD. in Web can help all small business
you can write something about your business in your own Website or the other wen and some other people can help you to talk about it more and more
but if your support isn't good, you lose very soon

[Dave1215]

The right use of promotional products (giveaways) can't be beat, especially if its something people want to either use or keep around. Keeps your name/brand/logo in front of the client on a very regular basis. Use the right products and that client may see your brand on a recurring basis for more than a year.

[UpperPeninsulaRon]

Originally Posted by Dave1215

The right use of promotional products (giveaways) can't be beat, especially if its something people want to either use or keep around. Keeps your name/brand/logo in front of the client on a very regular basis. Use the right products and that client may see your brand on a recurring basis for more than a year.

Thanks Dave. I was thinking about calculators with our logo since it fits in with our business but didn't follow-up because I figured that they would be way too much to pay for promotion items. Your reply renewed my interest and I found a site on line that would sell calculators with logo and name, etc. for just over two dollars each in reasonable quantities.

[Dave1215]

Originally Posted by UpperPeninsulaRon

Thanks Dave. I was thinking about calculators with our logo since it fits in with our business but didn't follow-up because I figured that they would be way too much to pay for promotion items. Your reply renewed my interest and I found a site on line that would sell calculators with logo and name, etc. for just over two dollars each in reasonable quantities.

Check out the Promotional Products Association's (broken link)website. They have a research area that talks about incorporating this into your strategy.

[rcarrillo]

I use mostly word of mouth and networking with professional referral sources. You can market once to a customer or build a pipeline of leads by picking up a few good professional sources that have similiar goals and need your services.

I also do some web advertising and marketing for our website. Really its my past clients and professional network that bring in 80% of my business. I tried a bit of newspaper and other advertising, but it was not worth the investment unless you have a large company and money to drop from what I saw.