I Started A Small Business And I Am Looking For Good Ways To Advertise?
November 8th, 2009
My business is making chocolate candy lollipops and creations. looking for good ideas to get the word out.
Thanks!
Improve the web with Nofollow Reciprocity.
As you are at the beginning try to make more customers from the working close to your shop. It is cheap to print several thousands leaflets with nice pictures of your products. The text should be describing why your sweets are the best choice. Think of something that makes them very special, relatively unique. In the leaflets sell some rebate, but either till a fixed deadline or to the bearer of the leaflet (thus when they come with the leaflet you will have the chance to ask them questions that will give you additional promotional ideas). You first step is popularity. target profit at a later stage.
Use any cheap options around your shop for advertising.
If nearby there are some fast foods try to cooperate with them or even to convince them to sell your products as a secondary products (your advantage is 5 min delivery from the order and small orders (you should not press them for minimum usd order)).
If the shop is close to living area – you could think of free deliveries for a certain period of time.
Here are some ideas:
1. Build a website of your own. Don’t rely on other online hosts like Yelp. They can make you or break you. Regardless, you don’t want to rely on anything but your own website which you can control.
2. Find a professional to build a functional website for you. Your website should be search engine friendly. If someone type: “chocolate shop in XXcity”, your website should be on the first page.
3. Build up your reputation. Even if you don’t want to rely on yelp, but the reviews still make good impact to your business. Remember word-of mouth is the best way to advertise your business.
4. Try to pass out coupons to your first customers. You will get a big crowd on your grand opening days. But these people will stop coming if they can’t find any reason to come back. So passing out coupons is a great idea.
5. I never found mailers effective. But you could try that too.
Here’s my back ground. I help people open restaurants as an interior architect. My partner is marketing major specializes in restaurants and small businesses. I hope my answer helps!
Have you thought about making a website? Websites are great marketing tools. They’re an awesome way to get exposure and will make your business look more established. Microsoft Office Live Small Business provides low cost websites with a lot of great features. Our website builder is template based so you will not have to know any code and hosting can cost as little as $15 a year.
Check out some success stories at http://smallbusiness.officelive.com/en-U…
Good luck!
Andy
MSFT Office Live Outreach Team
i’m sure your business is sweet!
here you will find great ideas for making the world know.
This is actually a club that teaches online marketing,but for the sake of ideas i advise you to go for.Are simple and logical ideas which ensure traffic to your business!
http://1a1075cc7xjkxfehehhmv5m076.hop.clickbank.net/
Hope i helped!
Try advertising on free classified sites like:http://www.khrido.com/http://craigslist.org/
Check out the other free and paid ways of promotion / advertisement: http://www.webtoolhub.com/article-a20-wh…