Starting a Business | SEO & Google

Business Advertising Ideas

No matter how good your idea is, you must convince others to part with their cash to make it a success. Advertising your business will create awareness and 'help' customers buy from you.

Look for the cheapest ways to reach as many of your target audience as possible. Dragging people in off the street could work, but you might get in a bit of trouble with the police!

Newspaper advertising can be very effective but it can be very expensive over a prolonged period. The important thing for you to do is measure the effectiveness, if you can. Adding a reference code to specific adverts can help you monitor the effectiveness, as can counting the number of customers entering your premises before, during and after a campaign. No monitoring will ever give you an exact measure, but it should soon become apparent that advertising with a certain newspaper is working well or else is tantamount to burning twenty-pound notes.

Cinema advertising is a relatively cheap way to get great exposure for your business, no matter what your sphere of operations. For a fixed quarterly fee, a slide advertising your business is shown to cinema audiences before each feature film on a given screen. You can design the slide. Whether the film is an art house flick or a summer blockbuster, you reach a lot of people throughout the day and night. By nature of the seating in cinemas, audiences can't help but watch the slides change as they wait for the film. Whether you are running a restaurant, retail store or a firm of accountants, cinema goers transcend sociodemographic boundaries and you will be talking to your potential customers. Cinema advertising also has a perceived high value associated with it and therefore by nature of taking part you can win some kudos for your business. People do remember cinema ads.

Planning a series of adverts is generally more effective in terms of penetration and awareness, and you will get a better offer than the rate card on each advert by buying in bulk. By showing long-term loyalty to a paper or website (which may only be a four-week commitment) you begin to build a relationship and are much more likely to get a feature written about you in the future. While newspapers are supposed to be unbiased, the local papers are totally funded by advertising, and therefore advertisers can sway the mood of the editors because, quite simply, you are paying their wages.

Once you have launched a retail business, it is well worth creating flyers and employing students or friends to flyer around town during your first weeks of business. Many of the flyers will find there way into a nearby bin, but by ensuring that there is a simple map on the reverse, and an incentive such as '10% on presentation of this flyer', you can draw literally hundreds of customers to your business for minimal outlay.

Do budget your advertising carefully and measure everything you can. Don't let costs spiral out of control, and make sure that you find out as quickly as possible what works and what doesn't. Don't forget the potential of free publicity; write a press release announcing your new business, no matter what stage you are up to. It is never too early to start letting the world know that you are on your way.


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