A small business is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, the stress levels tend to be a bit lower than with medium-sized business. On the other hand, the budgets tend to keep you down. You can’t really splash the cash on advertising and most of the big-time marketing venues are closed to you. This is why when advertising as a small company you need to be creative and know when and where to spend your hard-earned money. Let us take a look at your options.
The joy of tradition
The old guard have been around for a very long time. The printed publications, such as newspapers and magazines are constantly being pushed back and pronounced dead, and yet they are surviving, somehow. The ones that do obviously have a certain audience, and that audience believes the print ad 34% more than a search engine ad. The ads in the paper even last longer – literally as long as the paper itself. Isn’t that marvelous? While everyone else is looking the other way, the old guard is marching on. You should try and get a bit of that action while you still can.
The excitement of the new
Let us be clear – in today’s world, social networks are the royalty when it comes to communication and marketing. Not only do they allow everyone’s voice to be heard, but they also provide a global audience for your products or services. Add to that the ability to organize your marketing according to age, location, interests and many other parameters and you will know why social media has taken over the world. It can also be light on the budget – unless you are planning a global campaign – and a good fit for small businesses.
The glow of the (not so) small screen
People seem to forget is, since the numbers are down year after year, but television has been the king of marketing for decades. Together with the radio, it ruled the waves. The potential is still there – your messages on TV can still reach huge numbers of people, especially when there are some events that are televised, such as the Superbowl. However, this also means that TV advertising is quite expensive and reserved for much larger companies. Still, if you have a local business with a popular local TV or radio station, you could be reaching all the people you need to, without breaking the bank.
The tactility of the physical
What anyone can stand behind, whether large or small, is the idea that people not only like to have something physical that bears the name of your company, but they also like to show it and share it with others. If you are looking to get branded products into the hands of your (existing and potential) customers, try someone like Fast Promotional Products NZ. Aluminum water bottles are very much in, as far as the ecologically-minded crowd is concerned, while printed mugs or branded backpacks would please pretty much everyone.
The trust of the word-of-mouth
And so we arrive to the most trustworthy – at least according to what people believe – way of advertising. Unfortunately, it is pretty hard to both gauge this and to utilize it in any meaningful way. Word-of-mouth is practically everything you do, all the little things, from the way you approach your customers, to the way you deal with their problems, from how fast your delivery process is, to how your salesperson behaved that day. However, nothing can really compare to building a base of loyal customers that share their positive experiences with others. At the end of the day, this makes all your combined little efforts worthwhile.
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