What is the best advertising - on a shoe string budget?

By The Happy Camper : Business Start Up
Published 20th September 2013 | Last comment 21st February 2014
Comments
...And by the way, I use both Adwords and Facebook ads for myself and for clients. We have quite a bit of success with both. Facebook certainly gets the bigger bank for the buck because the ads are so much cheaper, but I love the flexibility of Adwords. Most businesses do not do well with it because they don't know how to use it. Indeed,

I do not recommend Adwords to anyone who either hasn't been trained or doesn't have the experience. Even average Adwords marketers will struggle. you've got to know the interface, landing pages, calls-to-action, testing and analytics. Not being good at any one of those can cause your campaigns to be a big waste of money.

I have never been successful with LinkedIn or Twitter Ads. My ongoing frustration with Linked In is a post, or perhaps a book, all on it's own. In a nutshell--a business platform that continues to squander a great market niche by not truly understanding how business works; but, I digress.

If you're on a budget, I say go with Facebook ads. If you want a profitable campaign for long-term profits, go with Adwords.

MasBro

I think sites like craigslist etc would help you start with free advertisement. But if you really want to promote your business building an online presence with integrated efforts of social media marketing and blogging is vital and guess what its free too

Suraj_AM

Hi Happy Camper,

If I may, I've gotten pretty dern good at marketing locally for folks and training others how to do the same.

The strategy most of my clients employ, and never fails....get yourself in bed with ideal referral partners who basically have a rolodex of all the types of clients you want.

The letters we send to these folks is usually in the vain of "let us make you a hero to your clients without costing you a dime and you won't have to lift a finger."

These industry or vertical lists can be cultivated through online directories or even purchased.

There will be nothing more powerful, in my opinion, then starting off getting an endorsement from the prospective clients own referral base, correct?

If you in turn offer reciprocity, you should be able to get alot of exponential, and low cost or free marketing help.

Hope that made sense and I hope it helps you.

Regards

Los

focusedlife

It depends on what sort of business you are running, but definitely SEO/Google Adwords/PPC and most of the strategies mentioned by other users will help. Don't underestimate the power of social media, if you achieve to engage your audience and they feel you care about them, you win.

semar

I think the argument between PPC & social media one is completely different from market to market. Some users may be stimulated with an offer from a business-so Facebook may work, some aren't... Eg you wouldn't be switched on by seeing an advert on Facebook from estate agent offering

Thanks,
mattylad

Hi, I have found paper advertising doesn't work for us, after spending a fortune with no return. I try and place our resources online advertising now.

Heart and Soul Disco

The best advertising of all is word of mouth referrals - and is free! If you get on particularly well with a client and it feels right, you can try asking them if they'd be happy to refer you. Although if they really like your work, most will do it unprompted.

Similarly face to face networking and getting to know people can be effective, even if you're web-based.

I've found good quality review sites that are directly relevant (i.e., TripAdvisor for restaurants and hotels) to be very effective.

Facebook ads have worked very well for some clients but not been so relevant for others - it really depends who you're targeting and where they congregate. One benefit with Facebook and PPC is that at least you can start experimenting with quite small amounts of money.

Thanks,
Elizabeth

The best advertising of all is word of mouth referrals - and is free! If you get on particularly well with a client and it feels right, you can try asking them if they'd be happy to refer you. Although if they really like your work, most will do it unprompted.

That's a superb and overlooked point.

Everyone knows you can't beat word of mouth referrals, but too many people get hung up on this and try too hard, and can end up alienating a previously happy customer.

If you are offering a quality service product and your customer service goes the extra mile, people really will recommend you unprompted. In exactly the same way people will naturally link to good web content.

Steve Richardson
Gaffer of My Local Services
My Local Services | Me on LinkedIn

Yeah, I agree that you need to be subtle!

I've found that the best way is to be genuinely knowledgeable, helpful and enthusiastic - i.e. within reason be willing to talk about what you do and answer questions and give opinions.

Thanks,
Elizabeth

Google Adwords is probably the best and most affective.

FireCrestFire

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