Small Business Advertising For Entrepreneurs

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Advertising in a small business is an art that no one should underestimate. Many companies today often misunderstand its potential in how it can affect a small business largely. Some think that it is irrelevant to start advertising thinking that during this stage it is impossible to compete with larger brands. A lot of people take this for granted but small business advertising, if understood correctly by its laws, can reap huge rewards for the company as well as the business owner.

The Small Business Administration states that according to its statistics, there should be a 5% budget for advertising in the total sales of every entrepreneur. Many people argue that 5% is too small for a business that competes in terms of advertising. A company that dedicated only 5% of its finances to its advertising can be done only if the entrepreneur understands the proven laws of small business advertising.

Here are some of the laws of advertising in a small business in order for it to become successful:

1. Utilizing only one message. Keep your advertisements simple, conveying only a single message so that it will stay in the minds of people whenever they come up with a problem that requires your expertise or products. The core of your message should penetrate your target market in no more than 3 seconds.

2. Include credibility in your ads. Distrusting common advertisements have become a human nature among many families that have been tricked into purchasing fraud products. In order to get around this, you should state a claim in your advertisement that will erase the doubt in your prospects. Make an advertisement that will be seen as a trusted brand every time a new person sees it.

3. Put your advertising to the test. There are many large companies out there that waste a lot of money because they have not tested their advertisements. In the case of small businesses, they do not have the luxury to do so. That is why a good alternative to this is to use coupons and special promos to measure the headline, placement and timing of your ads. It is advisable to test one product at a time and through one medium. Testing can be easy and simple such as asking one customer a week what they think of your brand.

4. Advertise with accuracy. A successful business can only be achieved if their advertising focused on only one target market. Focus your message to one target group because in this way, you are able to take advantage of focusing in one aspect.

Having a poor response in your target market is not the fault of the medium you are using. Most of the time, there is a problem with your message and how you deliver it to your prospects. Remember that small business advertising is not a quick solution but it requires planning, exposure and testing in order to make an impact in your business. If done correctly, this can be a winning strategy for your small business.

Local Small Business Advertising - Effective Marketing To Reach Your Target Audience

In today's economic atmosphere it is becoming increasingly difficult for any business survive. It seems that prices for all goods and services are on the rise and local small business advertising is no exception.

When the costs of essential business needs keep going up, but the amount of buying customers are going down. How are local business entrepreneurs supposed survive. How to you get more costumers through the door.

Print advertisement is one avenue many businesses are considering these days. But do these print ads or articles really drive you more customers? How can an advertisement company guarantee you traffic from an advertisement buy? There really isn't any way for these companies to track whether or not the customer you are trying to target is reading your advertisement.

Sure they can tell you how many households they are being distributed to in a defined area. However, there is no guarantee that your target consumer will ever read that advertisement. So when you buy that ad, How do you know you're getting your moneys worth?

Radio is another medium that many businesses try to use to increase their local customer traffic. But with more people downloading music and the obvious rise of the iPod generation, radio advertising has become a small business frustration. The increased cost of radio with no guaranteed return on investment has threatened many small businesses bottom lines.

Newspaper print ads, television, radio and the yellow pages are becoming more and more unreliable when it comes to driving targeted traffic to your business. Many small businesses are on a limited advertising budget as well.

Focused local businesses advertising ideas are what most businesses are searching for these days. That is driving many of these local businessmen to the internet.

Almost all families have access to the internet these days and the majority of all local searches are done through major search engines on the internet. If you want to find a reliable pest control man or maybe you're searching for the best carpet cleaner in town. Almost everyone is using the internet for these searches. Think about it, when was the last time you picked up the yellow pages. I'll bet half the people you talk to can't find them in their house or they've been thrown away.

So most business people are turning to the internet for their small business marketing. But this great advertising means involves more than just building a website or having someone build it for you. It involves being able to have that website effectively optimized for search engine traffic. You need to have done the proper keyword research for the content on your website. You also should have the proper L SI keyword phrases inserted into that text as well.

Small Business Advertising in the Digital Age

With the ability for you to leverage the power of the internet and the social media technology, you now have the tools to take your small business advertising to the next level. As with any business whether it be a small business, a big business, a brick and mortar offline business, or online, you need to do proper advertising to not only keep your current customers but also obtain new ones. For small business advertising, it really is no different than some of the really large companies except for the return on investment you are looking for. With the majority of most advertising going online, I am going to share with you some free and low cost small business advertising strategies. If implemented correctly, these strategies will drive an enormous amount of traffic to your business.

I am going to start with a couple free to low cost advertising strategies that will give you some traffic but not as much as others I will cover further into this article.

Have You Own Website

With so many people using computers and over 4 billion people online, you hear about people not reading the newspaper any longer, magazine subscriptions are way down and hear how online is the future. If you are considering getting any type of online presence with your small business, your own website is the first opportunity that you will want to tackle. While this may sound very cumbersome and technical, it can be really easy or it can be a complete nightmare, depending on how in depth you want your website. I know for a fact you can get your own website set up for free through many different sites online. For great results like I have had, many of my websites have cost me fewer than twenty five dollars, which I have complete control over and am able to add content or products at my leisure.

Along with your website, you could have an area on your site that would allow someone to download a "free newsletter", a "free how to video" or even a "free eBook" that is relevant to your products or services. When they insert their name and email into the form you then have captured their information and can market directly to them of new products you are selling, new promotions or just information to enhance their life.

Writing Articles Drives Eyes to Your Website

As mentioned above, it is very important to have your own website, but if you do not and do not feel that you can set one up, not all is lost; you could either not have a website or outsource the work to someone that does that for a living. With article marketing it is one of the advertising strategies that I use most often and have had great success with this particular strategy. Article marketing involves you writing a small article similar to this one, in 500-1000 words, with valuable information with the ability for the reader to learn more by either clicking on a link or your company information at the end. Article marketing is actually quite easy, does not cost you and money but does have a time factor involved.

Article marketing gives you the ability to write one specific article; let's say you have quilt making company and you write an article different types of quilts, you can then submit this article to hundreds of different sites for no cost. When you have a reader that likes your article and then wants to learn more, they then can contact you and possibly you will sell one or more quilts. There are also some sites that allow you to submit articles to that allow those readers can take your article and put it on their site or anywhere else as long as they keep your links and information intact.

Video Marketing is Powerful Beyond Words

A very powerful but yet very low cost small business advertising strategy is using video. I have had many conversations with small business owners that have used some ideas I have given them for their business on how to incorporate videos and they have seen outstanding results. Video is a powerful advertising strategy that uses sight, sound and connection (believe it or not). With the largest video sharing site in the world (YouTube) being owned by the largest search engine in the world (Google), the two powerhouses are providing great results for many people.

Videos can help promote you and your business as an expert in a specific field or around a specific product, a great way to obtain and retain loyal customers is to make a short "how to video" on something in your business at least once every couple weeks and put on your website. This not only keeps fresh and updated information on your site but also shows your customers you wide breadth of knowledge and dedication to providing them with answers.

Finally the Highest Traffic Generating Strategy

When I was new and green to the internet marketing arena and was being taught by some of the greatest marketing minds online, someone started teaching me about Pay-Per-Click; to be honest I thought they said Paper-Clip. I immediately started thinking what does paperclips have to do with advertising, but I was quickly educated that it is Pay-Per-Click; which is a highly targeted advertising strategy that you are only charged for your advertising when someone clicks on your advertisement. This strategy will drive the most traffic to your business out of all the other marketing strategies but can cost you some very pretty pennies; I strongly advise having someone teach you how to do this that has done this before.

Pay-Per-Click is not for the light hearted, nor the fearful. This advertising could cost dollars a day up to thousands a day, depending on how you set your campaign up and how and who you target.

I hope this helps you with your small business advertising and if you would like to learn more about some or all of these strategies, watch the short video provided below and request more information.