Low Cost Advertising Ideas
Advertising is a high stakes game with huge price tags for big-time advertising exposure. Even the small business can benefit from promotion. There are a number of low-cost alternatives for advertising that can be quite effective for generating awareness. In exchange for low cost, some require a little bit of elbow grease.
Other People Are Reading
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Flyers and Business Cards
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Printed flyers can be easily created for advertising purposes even on a home computer. Flyers can be handed out, placed on car windshields or mailed. Business cards are an underappreciated advertising tool. The flip side of a business card can be used to sell a business by providing information on services, products, the company motto or a customer service number.
Classified Advertising
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Small marketers often neglect a viable and low-cost means of advertising offered by classified advertising. Whether a small display ad or a text listing, advertising in the classified section of print media gets significant exposure. Some people live to read the classifieds, preferring to read magazines and newspapers from back to front.
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Free Search Engine Listings
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The Internet offers a number of ways for businesses to advertise the low-cost way. Free listings are available on major search engines like Google or Microsoft's Bing or Yahoo. Web directories are a viable way to promote and drive visitor traffic to websites.
PR Releases
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Company news releases are a way to get some free exposure for a company or product. Make friends with writers at local media so that releases get their intended exposure.
Paid Search
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Preferentially placed, paid search listings by major search engines represent another option. This option can prove to be more costly than some other available Internet advertising option when costs are based on click-throughs or other cost per acquisition pricing structures. The ability to set budget limits can help control the expense of paid search ads.
Millions of webmasters have monetized the space on their websites and it's possible to have a display ad on some appropriate websites for relatively small out-of-pocket costs on these content-oriented sites. Recent research indicates ads on content sites may be more effective than search engine or Web portal advertising.
Articles and Newsletters
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Developing articles establishes awareness of a business as well as credibility as an expert. Businesses should routinely write articles for placement on the Internet. A newsletter can be printed and mailed out, or even more efficiently, created online for distribution to existing customers. Articles and newsletters can advertise services or communicate products on sale at little or no cost.
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