Small Business Advertising – Can It Be Affordable and Effective?

As a small business owner you may have found that one of your biggest challenges is advertising or marketing your business. Traditionally, businesses advertised on radio, television, newspapers, and phone books. New technology has changed the way we do business. Satellite radio, TiVo, DVR, etc. have made it hard to get the word out. What can you do? Where can you find affordable, effective advertising? Have you thought about using new technology to help your customers find you?

• Social Media A good way to let the world know about your company is through social media. Word of mouth advertising continues to be one of the most effective forms of advertising. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. are all inexpensive to set up. Blogs, posts, and articles are good ways to bring attention to your business.
• Smart phones As the popularity of smart phones has increased, more applications have become available. Advertising using the mobile platform is available in the form of mobile coupons, text message campaigns, and QR codes just to name a few.
• Local Advertising Most searches for business include a city or zip code. Google has set up places pages for businesses. All you need to set up your places page is a little knowledge. When your places page is properly set up, customers will be able to find your business on the Google Places map not just on the internet, but also through apps on their smart phones, and on their GPS.
• Internet Although not quite as new, more and more people are using the internet to find the goods and services they need. Internet searches have replaced the phone book in most households. Additionally customers can find information about your business, descriptions of your products, and even directions to your place of business. Websites have become a must for small business marketing.

Taking advantage of new technology and using it to market your business will help you see better results for your advertising dollar. Combining all of the different platforms, social, local, mobile, and web should really give you more bang for your buck! You may need additional help setting up your websites, blogs, and mobile advertising campaigns. A good marketing company can help set up all of these for you at extremely reasonable rates. Most companies will provide tracking so that you can see the difference your new marketing campaign is making in your business. Just search for a small business marketing company for your area!