Low Cost Advertising
When you are running a start up or a small business, chances are you are operating on a shoestring budget. In fact running the business has trained you to be your own accountant, salesperson, researcher, budget officer, administrative clerk, utility and the general manager all rolled up.
You are reluctant in getting a marketing agency. The budget does not allow that. Besides, the number of media outlets out there to choose from can daunt even larger businesses.
Now you also have to be your own advertiser and plan ways of getting your messages across to get your products the exposure it needs.
The bad news is…your constraint in budget does not exactly place you at the cutting edge of advertising.
The good news is…who cares.
Web banner ads, viral marketing, RSS feeds, pod casting, cellular phone messaging, and other forms of digital marketing has competed directly with radio, print and television which were the lords at advertising. As marketing expenditures becomes more dispersed among the traditional media, the kings of advertisements are now trying to win your business. That means you can now have lower rates with freebies and bargains.
Your local newspaper and magazines might even help you in organizing and writing your campaign. This cannot stay for long. Big businesses often have a way of getting back to its footing. They plan, strategize, consolidate and when the needs dictate converge, all for the game of getting a big chunk of the market and gaining market dominance. So act on this now.
Fleet graphics and other forms of roving advertisement can also help you stretch your marketing dollar besides being highly effective because of their visibility. Since they are mobile, they come into contact with more audiences and in varied locations that is not possible with other low cost mediums. Like billboards, they can be as colorful and as attractive as you can design them to be. They have a good staying power with the elements and are durable. Although unlike billboards, they can be anywhere. Fleet graphics can make a fast turn around on the traffic to your site.
T- shirts are also one of the more inexpensive means of communicating your message to your target market. Like fleet graphics your site can be noticed by as many people as possible. You do not even have to worry about targeting a specific market. Once you wear them around you get into contact with a multi category market.
I have seen this many times. A well-designed sticker on a car, a painted logo and company name on the bumper advertising websites to visit.
You can also try flyers and have them distributed in places were traffic is good like terminals and airports.
Use blogs. This is free advertising.
Blogs are effective ways of getting more traffic to your website by posting your keyword and indexing your blogs. Do this through your search engines. Search engines love blogs.
Try also the free traffic exchanges. This can get traffic to your sites in a few days by just posting an advertisement on their homepage. There is no joining fee.
Sometimes the only thing that holds people back from self-promotion does not even have to do with budgets. People sometimes feel silly doing promotion. But promotion is a key marketing activity. It is better to have a product advertised even on very limited terms than not having it advertised at all.
If a product or a service is not advertised, it does not really matter if it is an excellent one or not. It will not take off.
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