Online advertising is a great way to get your business out there and you have access to a worldwide market, which is A LOT of people!
Consider setting up a website and/or consider launching an ad campaign with Google AdWords, Microsoft, or Yahoo.
With the online ad campaign, you set a daily budget and Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo (choose one or all three) will showcase your ad every time someone searches for something related to your niche. For example, let's say you have a tax planning service. For a fraction of the cost, you can set up an online ad for your tax planning company easier than you could put an ad in the newspaper.
Every time someone does a search for something related to tax planning (or whatever keywords you choose), your ad has a chance of showing up. If someone clicks on your ad then you will be charged a small advertising fee of around $2. If no one clicks on your ad, you don't get charged. Consider newspapers that charge you whether someone reads your ad or not, see the benefit here?
This is a great way to reach a large audience on a limited budget. And just think, your audience is ANYONE with a connection to the internet. This means cell phones, laptops, desktops, Tablets, you name it! As long as someone has a connection to the internet...they could be a potential customer.
Join some local clubs or organizations in your niche.
Look online for organizations related to your niche. For example, using the "tax planning" niche for above you can go online and to a Google search for tax planning clubs or tax planning professionals. The popular social website Meetup.com is also a GREAT way to meet like minded people. If you are not a member of this website, join (It's free) today and start meeting like minded professionals.
Create business cards and flyers for yourself and hand them out.
You can get cards and flyers relatively cheap at vistaprint.com. You can usually order 500 to 1000 business cards or flyers for less than $50.
Get some marketing materials from VistaPrint and hand them out at your local church, salon, or stick them in car windows in major parking lots such as shopping malls and supermarkets.
Create a referral and rewards program.
Give people incentives to be repeat customers. i.e. use my service 5 times and the 6th is free or half off, or you could say sign up now and get 30% off. There are many ways to do this so get creative.
Look At What Your Top Competitors Are Doing, and offer better terms.
If you were in the business of printing business cards and flyers and other marketing materials, Vistaprint would probably be one of your biggest competitors. Check out how they run their business and see if you can take something away from that. Learn what they are doing well and reapply that to your business model.
Either way, establishing an online business (online marketing) in addition to your current (offline) efforts should really help your business.
Good luck!
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