Low Budget, Cost Effective Advertising for the Small Business.

If you just started a business, fell into one by word of mouth, or thinking about increasing your advertising budget to create more exposure and sales, here are a few cost effective ideas that will be easy on your pocket book.

PR! PR! PR!  Public Relations can be one of the most cost effective, low budget business directives you can take to advertise your products and services. Create a story on how it all began or a story around one of your products or services, interview your customers for their stories, and create a package to sell to the press. You could tie stories to public events and holidays too.

You’ll also need to draft a list of press contacts and sites to submit your releases and articles to. PRWeb.com is a great site for posting releases on the web. They perform other PR functions starting around $165.00 per release. There are also many free article directory sites that you could submit your articles to. If you’re not comfortable or familiar with writing to sell the press, fielding interviews, and tracking the results of who’s interested in what you have to sell, I recommend using a
small marketing firm, like MCThinkTank.net. All-in-all, Public Relations can give you a big bang for your buck with writing that sells, perseverance, and patience.

Viral Marketing!  This is how you fell into your business if it got started by word of mouth. Viral Marketing is an awesome way to advertise your products and services. Viral marketing is based on this natural human behavior that encourages
people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily to create the impression of spontaneous word of mouth enthusiasm. It can creatively be done on or offline with text messaging, video clips, photos, blogs, social communities, parties, and old fashioned word of mouth.

These two low budget creative ideas, parties and videos, will definately get the viral juices flowing. They can easily be created through this site!! Parties are planned to create enthusiasm and talk amongst others during and after the party given. Video clips are a fun and very effective way to make an impression on customers. You can definitely get others talking with video clips. See
GSS Video Marketing, if you’re interested in making a video clip for your business.

Web Marketing!  Create an online presence. If you don’t have a site, not to worry. There are other low cost ways to claim your real estate on the web, such as web classifieds like Craigslist.com and YellowPages.com. You can easily create your own optimized web page, specials/sales ads, sales calendars, and product/service search ads on GirlShopSpot.com. Another possibility is Like.com, which is a product specific e-commerce search for designer look alikes. Etsy.com is also a nice site if you have an inventory full of handmade products. If you do indeed have a site, you could submit your site to shopping directories as well.

Direct Marketing!  You can buy or create a list of potential customers. If you’re taking the cost effective, low budget method, start creating a list of people you know. Then do some research on your target and how to contact a percentage
of those each month by e-mailer or mail. Get some business cards made at PrintsMadeEasy.com. Make sure to give out your card when the opportunity arises. Send a mailer and e-mail to those on your list at least once a quarter. Don’t forget to market to friends and family too. They will always be your viral marketing tool, if not a customer.

Promotions and Sweepstakes!  Promotions and sweepstakes are a great way to get your product or service out there and get people talking about it. A low budget way to run a promotion is to partner with another small business to share the expense and garner the attention.

Print!  Pick a few local papers and journals in your key target regions. Get a feel for what a general ad would cost and how long the ad would run. Compare pricing and determine your exposure from running each ad. Ask how many impressions the ad will get you and how many leads you can expect by running the ad (compare the ratio of leads to impressions). Set aside a small budget to reach a percentage of paper and journal readers. If you don’t have the time, you can always contact MCThinkTank.net for assistance.