Free (well, almost) Advertising and Lead GenerationWritten by Dawn Roberts
It occurred to me today, while driving along a road that I travel quite regularly that a lot of home business people are missing out on great low cost and almost free advertising. Why did I come to this realization while driving down that road that I've driven down time and time again? Because I read same sign that I read each and every time I drive that road - "Ron Bus Equipment Rentals Open Mon-Sat".There is a multitude of inexpensive ways to advertise and generate leads for your business! Id you're not taking advantage of this stuff - your competitor probably is! Don't spend ALL your money on purchasing leads and taking ads out in papers. These are definitely viable and productive means to generate business. However, they are not only way to do so. Post inexpensive signs along roadside. Attach these to lamp posts or staple them to a stake and stick them in ground. The best places to do so are at intersections - anywhere where traffic has to stop or at very least, slow down. If you'd like to get fancy, you can purchase some treated foam poster board from your local office supply store and some vinyl lettering. These are weather resistant, inexpensive and will last for some time.Put a raffle box at your local convenience store. Cover a tissue box with wrapping paper. Print out a short blurb about your business along with a description of what you're raffling. Cut it out and tape it to front of tissue box. Print out numerous entries for people to complete (name, telephone, email address). Finally, tie a piece of string to a pencil and tape string to bottom of tissue box. Pop in daily to extract your leads and draw one of names at end of month!If you're hosting a garage/lawn sale, include your brochures at table where people will pay you for their purchases.For Halloween, make up goodie bags and insert a business card into each goodie bag. The parents will get card when they check kids' treats!Flyers - For most effective and least expensive flyers, get yourself a Sharpie marker and on a white piece of paper, tell people in two sentences
| | Pay Per Click Search Engines are the top Internet marketing tools,Written by Kevin OHara
Pay per click search engines are not being used just for sales in now time frame anymore, they are being used by large and small companies alike to build a business identity that their customers will remember. When you pay for placement on a search engine to get visitors to your site most small businesses are hoping those visitors turn into immediate sales, or instant gratification. What you may not expect, however, is most of larger companies are advertising on search engines to increase long term brand awareness.Kevin O’Hara President of buzzseek.com comments, even though pay per click or pay per performance advertising using a search engine is more commonly thought of as a short-term marketing, more businesses are looking at long term benefits from paying for placement on top search engines. Large and small company’s alike track immediate sales to justify spending on pay per click advertising but they are also trying to create long term identification, that should be secondary objective. People with Internet access find new products or services by searching web through
|
