Marketing, in my opinion, consists of these 2 things:
- Figure out who might want to buy your products/service and
- Ask them to buy it
There are plenty of ways to promote your business. Don’t forget to always measure the results. Crunch the numbers. If you can have a steady stream of prospects at the door, your business will grow. Here are some ideas to promote your business to the next level:
Newspaper advertising - Here’s what to look for when considering newspaper as your media. Find out cost per thousand or CPM. It works like this, a local newspaper reaches 50,000 people. You can buy a half-page advertisement in that paper for $1,000. If we divide 1,000 by 50. You can see your cost is $20 to reach 1,000 people.
When you find out your cost per thousand, you can examine and compare results from multiple advertising media. Also consider a “media waste.” Your cost per thousand maybe cheap, but if you are targeting people who are not interested in your product/service, you’re still wasting money.
Yellow pages advertising - If you are a small business, this is a must have. 80% of visitors on superpages.com actually have intentions to call the advertisers
Radio ads – Try to call your local radio station. They will be more than happy to assist you with advertisement inquiry. Here are some tips for you.
Create a script promoting your business and ask the presenter to read it. Presenters have some kind of a fan base, if he/she promotes your business, their listeners will listen. This process is cheaper and easier as opposed to creating a full 30 seconds ad.
Usually, at night, radio stations are looking for guest speakers. If you could get interviewed, your business will get free public relations. It’s a great way to boost your profile. You can attract real attention to yourself and your business.
Writing articles - If you can get a “Why you might need a Website” article published in a business magazine, it can work very well to generate leads. Writing articles is a good form of PR, and allows you to “borrow credibility” from the publication in which your article appears. As the only expense involved is the time it takes you to write the article, this form of promotion can be very cost-effective.
Flyers - Flyers are ok because they are cheap. You might get a call or two from flyers.
Hold a seminar – Why not hold a seminar in your community center? Establish yourself as an expert in your field.
Spend $1,000 to promote the seminar, fill up a good-sized room, and retire to the Bahamas on the profits! Well… not quite, but you’ll do OK! The trouble here is that you have to spend a little to make a little.
Charge a token fee of, say, $10 per head, so that your audience perceives some value in spending a day with you. Granted, you may not make much of a profit from the event itself, but it’s the lead-generation that will benefityour business in the long run.
Encourage referrals - Constantly encourage your past clients, family, and friends to refer people to your business. This is by far the most effective form of advertising. It is extremely targeted.
Branded merchandise - Only use it as a gift to high-valuable clients. T-shirts, mugs, calendars, pens are expensive. Use it only if it can be justified with your profits.
….continue reading to 16 ways to promote your business – Part 2
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