How to Advertise Your Own Business

So you’ve got a great idea for your own business, invested some money in it and you’re ready to go. Whether you’re a hairdresser, dog walker, babysitter, investment banker, media guru or anything in between, there’s one thing you need to think about; advertising.

There are many ways you can go about advertising your own business. You might not have the millions of pounds available to the big business’ out there but you can still make a difference to your customers and your turnover by setting a reliable and affordable advertisement plan in motion.

Depending on who your audience is will determine whereabouts is best for you to advertise your business. Do some research, talk to your customers and find out whether they have any similar interests in which you can capitalize on.  Once you’ve found out a little more about your customers you need to start drawing yourself up an advertising plan to organize your ideas.

Some advertisements will fit your business better than others and some you might want to ignore all together. The important thing is that you draw up a comprehensive business plan and customer profile in order to ensure your adverting efforts become a success

Offline advertising is an essential in letting your local community know what your business is all about. Even with the simple design and message you can make a severe impact to the success on your business by getting your name out there. Offline advertising is your first step in attracting potential customers and letting your idea grow.

Advertising Posters

Posters are a great way of getting your message out there, they don’t have to be anything too fancy, just a simple design and a catchy slogan will be enough to start the ball rolling. Be sure to put all the relevant information on there so your customers can get in touch and post in local café’s or public places to increase the chance of catching someone’s eye.

Business cards

Sometimes the old ways are still the best, and that is certainly the way with business cards. This is your chance to get creative here. The more individual and imaginative your card is, the larger the likelihood that the person you give it to will keep hold of it. Once again it is important to ensure that all the relevant information for contacting your business is on the card. Hand them out in meetings and keep at least a couple on you at all times, you never know when you could run into a potential investor.

Flyers

Flyers are really useful because they’re cheap and you can post them anywhere. If you print off a couple of hundred then you can leave them in café’s, supermarkets and post them through doors in order to let your surrounding neighborhood know that you’re open for business.

Due to the expansion of the web into an all-encompassing tool that anyone can use for anything these days, the opportunity to advertise online is almost limitless. However, this also has its downfalls. Depending on what kind of business you run, you will suit one type of online advertisement more than another. Once again it’s important to do your research here. Don’t go wading in sticking adverts online anywhere you can find a place for them. Take a look around and see what kind of other businesses are advertising there, check out your major competitors and see how they are advertising. Is there something you’re doing that they’re not and can you capitalize on this?

Blogging

There are a thousand different ways of setting up a blog these days, but they all have one thing in common, they all have a direct message. Whether you start blogging about your experiences as an entrepreneur or just a corner of the web to post your latest deals, it’s important to remember that writing a blog is a communal effort. To increase interaction of your blog it’s a good idea to go check out other blogs and leave comments in order to increase your online presence.

Google Places

Google Places is a fantastic mapping application in which you can put your local business on the biggest mapping service world has to offer. Simply register with Google places and write a short description of your business and whereabouts you operate from. Google will then do all the hard work for you. This is a great way of getting your business noticed within the local area and leaves a lot of space for your own online development. Google Places allows you to add pictures, update your address and place ads. Plus it’s totally free!

Facebook

Facebook has now become an internet giant, with almost 800 million active users on Facebook it’s a great place to let people know what your business is all about. Facebook lets you upload pictures and statuses that notify potential customers what you’re up to. With a totally customizable layout system you can let your inspiration loose here. With more likes comes more publicity so it’s worth spending some time in working on your Facebook page in order to send out a clear message. Facebook is an intensely personal interactive website and gives you a chance to interact directly with potential and current customers. Take full advantage of this to increase your online presence and the rewards should speak for themselves.

Twitter

Twitter is a microblogging social media site in which your posts are limited to 140 characters of text. Although this is a little complicated at first, don’t be daunted by it. What looks like a mess of @’s hash tags and other localized lingo, it’s worth sticking with it. As the fasted growing online social media website Twitter is becoming one of the big players of the social media spectrum.

Whether you choose to do online advertisement, offline advertisement or both, it is important to stay true to your business plan. Don’t get disheartened if you don’t see a return straight away, it’s important to be patient. The main thing to do is enjoy what you’re doing. If you’re passionate about your business your customers will see that, and that in itself is the best advertisement there is.