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.
