How do you promote your business?

[jen]

Hello,

How do you guys advertise your businesses?

Which advertising does give you the most results? Online or off-line?

When advertising in magazines, would you choose a local/national targeted magazine ie: business magazine targets business owners, wholesalers for traders, parenting for parents etc... or a general type directories/magazine?

Would you subscribe to an online free magazine or do you prefer the printed paid version?

How much would you pay for a 1/4 size ad in A5 magazine with small (around 2,500) but targeted readership?

Your opinion will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Jen

[Urban Space]

Hey

In general, Online promoting works better as it reaches out to the rest of the world, therefore increasing your customers, thus boosting your profits!

Moreover, not everyone speaks English - perhaps consider promoting in foreign languages?

As for newspapers, why not try free AND paid printed? By the way, something I've picked up, never have your advert printed on the left hand side of a page - apparently people don't take as much notice as the right hand side (?)

As for cost, that would differ depending on the number of people the newspaper is to be distributed to and the size of the ad.

Hope I've helped

Thanks

Liam

[TechFox]

http://hostfox.net/promotion.html

[JoyDivision]

My dads never really got any response from paid printed adverts. He found Yellow Pages didn't work as people just phoned the big adds, he just has a free listing now.

My dad finds that most his custom comes from leaflets, and of course the great thing about leaflets is its very easy to choose your customers. Just do the areas which you want to work in :).

Also it depends on the business type, most my dads customers are local as local people like to support local businesses. This suits my dad fine as it saves an awful lot on petrol :D

[fastfences]

Hi Jen,

I was going to tell you about my dad's advertising, but I'll stick to my own for the sake of relevancy. :wink:

The medium of advertising seems highly dependant upon the type of business. As I recall, you're doing the Parent Card 'thing', so you need to create a rather quick 'identity. This, you can't do through Yellow Pages etc, because it can take months until the next edition. (I swear by the Yellow Pages for my business; I run a 'reasonable' sized ad- not just a free listing. We want to stand out, don't we?) Advertising is our 'shopfront' - if we work from home, we need it.

I favour local paper advertising and a local glossy mag. Rates are going to vary tremendously, but you could pay £100 per month for an eighth page colour ad.'

Web advertising is good, but I feel a lot of people are 'over-reliant' on it. We have to put in the hard yards on the street: shops/offices the lot! I do, however, agree that joining every directory I can possible find has benefits. I do get call and it places my website at 1 on page 1 of Google all the time - not that that's a big deal, but it makes us prominent.

Cheers, Nigel

[clairemackaness]

I think it depends on your product. If I was looking for an artist, I'd probably use the net or trade press, but if I wanted a fence I'd use yellow pages. If I wanted to find out about events etc, I'd check the local press.

Advertising rates vary dramatically depending on the coverage and reader numbers, but I find the best way to get in is to write interesting press releases and get small articles printed.

I've been lucky enough to be in my local paper 3 times in the past two months and I always get web visits following a print run.

[tommy]

Use both online and offline advertisements.

Online - I dont use any of the google adwords or any other ones like this as I jsut see them as a waste of money tbh. So I have set up an affiliate scheme giving 10% for every sale, so basically I only pay for advertising if I get paid which is kind of good.
I am also a member of 6 car forums (2 being the largest in the country)

Offline - I have agreed with approx 25 local car stores (mainly performance and modification stores) in the Essex, London area to allow me to advertise flyers in their stores, in exchange they get free advertising space on my site for their company and a banner in my banner rotations.

Also a friend of mine works for a Performance/Modification Car magazine so I am trying to twist his arm to get me even half page advert in the mag.

[RSL]

Hi Jen,

What is your business? It all depends on what exactly your business is and the market segment you are trying to attract. I have found free directories to be of great use like The Gumtree. Networking also works.

Kind regards,

RSL

[mattk]

Maybe I'm lucky, but word-of-mouth and personal recommendations keep me more than busy. I don't even have time to work on my own Web site!

[gapgb]

Jen,

The best advice I had recently was to think about who, what, where, when and why of your business and this should help you decide how to market yourself.

Who - your target customers
What - your service and product
Where - where your customers look for info / products, news print, internet etc
when - is it time dependent or seasonal, we all see the tv ads change during the day and during the year
Why - why buy from you as opposed to someone else.

If you can sort through this you should have some idea of where to start. Quite a few marketing methods are free. PR as pointed out by some other replies is a good way to start. PPC is well represented by a number of people in the forum who could advise if it was right for you.

If you want any more ideas send me a PM and I will try and help

[etechsupport]

Concentrate more your local niche market.
Get press release about your activity with some advancement in your field.
Create your strong online presence.
Create your brand awareness.
Select a cost effective media objectives/ ad campaign for your tgt market which is most suitable.

[fastfences]

I don't even have time to work on my own Web site!

What website? Give us the URL so we can all share it :wink:
Cheers, Nigel