12 tips for advertising Your businesses effectively
How can I advertise for my business?
Advertising for any business can be done online, on social networks with Google Adwords, and in conventional or offline media, which are also important. When starting a business, it is necessary to have a good business strategy, but this requires some steps to be correctly implemented. Advertising without strategy is a waste of money; On the other hand, if you do it well, it is your best investment and an indispensable tool for the growth of your business.
Today you will know how to make a good advertising campaign for businesses in critical areas without costing you more. You will also see how you can find the help of a professional publicist for this and obtain the same results as with an agency, or even better.
How to advertise for free?
The only 100% free advertising is word of mouth. That is, the good testimonials from clients that they recommend to you. However, you can attract customers to your business for a cost of almost zero dollars. This is achieved by implementing inbound marketing or attraction marketing strategies, as it is also known, and SEO strategies so that you can sell online by attracting customers to your website.
How to advertise more effectively?
For effective campaigns, we must know the preferences of our target audience, as well as plan the optimal media and schedules for each market segment, as we will see below in these 12 steps:
1. Segment your target market as much as possible
Something fundamental for a good strategy is to segment your target market as much as possible. In other words, you must know your target person well. Who are your buyers, what problems does your product or service solve, and through what means can you reach them?
It is also important to know data such as their age ranges, country or geolocation, and their tastes and preferences, interests, lifestyle, devices from which they navigate, etc. Even the browser they use.
So you can launch more personalized campaigns.
2. Run several small campaigns instead of one big one
In addition to the above, once you have your market segments defined, you can design several small campaigns instead of one large one.
For instance:
Instead of running a Facebook ad that lasts 15 days, you can run 3 out of 5 days each. Thus, advertising is not repetitive, and it once again captures the attention of those who did not notice your ad much before.
The same applies to marketing through Adwords. This type of advertising is more attractive to people if it varies and they are short campaigns.
It is better to have several small and frequent campaigns than a single extensive campaign that then disappears.
3. Make publications of interest and recommend your brand
An excellent option to promote yourself and get closer to your customers is through the content of their interest, in which you also introduce the solution to one of their problems with your products.
Have you seen those recipe magazines where they recommend the ingredients of the sponsoring brands?
The same principle applies. If people find a solution they were looking for with a specific brand, they are much more likely to acquire it.
You can do it through sponsorship in an existing medium or by creating a publication of interest yourself. Then, you can send it to your subscribers physically or electronically through email marketing.
Another option is to have it on your website to download for free as a pdf, video tutorial, etc.
4. Promotions and gifts for your followers on social networks
One way to attract more visitors to your social networks, get more followers and give your business more publicity is to run promotions to give away something to users on the network.
You can offer samples of your product or a gift.
The dynamics that attract more followers are sharing and hashtags, answering questions, tagging friends, sharing and liking, etc.
Another good idea is to give a discount for purchases or referral codes. For example: “First people to send inbox get a discount code.” Another option is: “share this code with a friend and get a discount.” Or you can also give away points, memberships, purchase bonuses, or improvements to your product for referring friends who buy what you offer.
The important thing is to take advantage of social networks to promote yourself and, in addition, obtain statistical data from your followers.
5. Offline advertising
Of course, it is essential to have advertising on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the like. But one front that you should never neglect is that of advertising in traditional media. Again, of course, well planned and well distributed, conducting a study of what would work best for you, depending on your customers’ tastes or by what means it is easier to reach them.
This can include:
- Frills
- Brochures in kiosks
- Posters
- Billboards
- Radio spots
- Ads or inserts in the local newspaper
- etc.
While you don’t need to spend too much on advertising in non-digital media, you must allocate a part of your budget for it. Also, remember that online advertising can sometimes be blocked or bypassed. But if you add eye-catching advertising on physical media, you can attract the eyes of thousands of people and familiarize them with your brand.
There is a straight connection between business and advertising. Today advertising is not restricted to the media, newspaper, and radio. There are a lot of ways to interact with people. Printing is one of the chief mediums of advertising. In this digital world, printing gave a firm foothold to every business. Beautiful ads and printed documents designed superbly convey the brand ideas to the public excellently and effectively.
There was a time when only big investors could bear advertising expenses, but it is not so many more. Today with the technology getting so high and people getting aware of the importance of advertising, it is becoming a trend to advertise whether you are a small businessman or a bigger one. Printing documents and other marketing tools are not so expensive today as it was in the olden days.
Today with the help of the latest technology, it takes less time and labor to get the printing done, and thus you can get it done at a much affordable price. Moreover, if you research well and compare the prices of different firms, you can get the job done at a much reasonable price.
Banner printing is much in trend and is attracting the attention of more and more customers. If you are in the business field and are not sure which marketing tool to go with for your business, you can check out banner printing, and it will surely help you out. Getting it printed from a reputed firm is always a wise idea to get the job done professionally and best way as per your need. Check out for more options online, compare them, and then place your order to best suit your need and budget.
Do not stop advertising in media such as TV, or you can go to local radio and participate in a space, giving something away during your on-air intervention. Many radio stations offer short free slots or swaps to promote your brand. You can also seek the help of an audio track editor to place a radio spot ad.
6. Choose strategic places and times
Think of places where other companies or businesses that are your competition do not usually advertise. In addition, you can try at unusual or different times than usual.
You often get more attention that way than when there are thousands of other ads that the potential customer overlooks.
You can think about advertising by putting your ad on tables of food courts, taxis, parking meters, seats, shopping carts, etc. The idea is to promote your business in unexpected places for a more significant impact.
7. Customize all customer contact points
Part of the presentation and professionalism of your brand is that all points of contact with the client reflect the colors, logos, typography, etc., of your business.
You do not have to be a big company to have your logo on promotional products for fairs and events. You can look for an expert designer in branding or promotional design to create your stationery, envelopes, cards, and things like pens, notepads, diaries, delivery packaging, stickers to identify your products, etc. Even delivering your purchase in a nice bag with your logo gives your business status—much more than if you provide it in a manila envelope or any gift bag.
Take advantage of every opportunity to put your brand on a show so that the client takes home something with your logo or contact information.
8. Reward your most loyal customers
Maintain the loyalty of your buyers
By offering them unique benefits as per their preferences, you will be earning brand loyalty. But, again, this is not something to be taken lightly.
Customers like to feel recognized and treated specially. If you’re thinking of the typical point or stamp card, that’s fine. But thanks to technology, you can go one step further.
One idea is to have an affiliate program to earn referral commissions. Also, you can see, for example, on social networks, who are your most frequent visitors, who comments on your posts, or who most shares your content.
You can offer gifts such as agendas or collectibles to those who buy more or return to your store in the same month.
Another idea is to offer better prices to those who buy from you “by lot.”
This is one of the advertising methods most used by subscription web services. They offer you a better price if you make a single purchase for the year. You can think of a similar idea. Better price for more hours of service purchased in advance or for more than the same product purchased in the same purchase.
9. Cut costs without losing effectiveness
You can save costs on your media advertising, especially physical ones, by reducing the size of your ads a bit or by adapting the art to make the most of space.
A simple example:
You can change a two-page ad in a magazine to a single right-page ad (right-side pages are viewed by readers first). This way, you maintain visibility at a lower cost.
If you have a 1-minute radio ad, you may later opt for 30-second ads. The voice-over time is less, but the effectiveness is the same, so it is cheaper, and you get the same results.
Another type is that, when making a reverse and right steering wheel, ask your designer that the art of the front and the reverse mount them on the same face “head to head” so that in the printing, they use the same plates in the shot and retirement. This way, you save the cost of 4 plates in printing.
You could also think of advertising in two-tone only or some very striking art but grayscale. Thus you save on the production of advertising material and do not lose effectiveness.
10. Participate in events or organize yours
You may have noticed that the major brands of almost anything are sponsors of charity or sporting events related to their brand or where the public who attends can buy what they offer.
You can copy their strategy by participating in local events in communities or tournaments.
Of course, you must be selective. The criterion is that the target person of your interest attends the event and that you prepare a sales strategy.
If there aren’t enough events, you could team up with friendly companies (suppliers or non-competitors) to host an event.
It can be an informative breakfast, a course, a forum, a sporting event, an art show, etc. Involve the community and show your logo and your products during the realization of it.
You can invite local media to cover the event to write a press release or a short article about it.
11. Do email marketing
This is a tool that can be very effective if you know how to use it.
- Do not flood newsletters (newsletters) to your subscribers; make important announcements. There are excellent software and tools that you can use without costing you more.
- Remember to personalize as much as possible. Never send spam or offers of little interest or too general.
If you don’t know much about handling mass mailing tools, you can seek help from an email marketing professional. Or you can ask the advertiser you hire to help you.
But watch out for spam:
Send emails only and exclusively to your customers or subscribers. And allow them to unsubscribe from your newsletter or re-subscribe whenever they want. Do not buy databases of companies dedicated to it because not only can they sell you ghost emails, but the few real ones will be poorly received and marked as spam. This reduces your business possibilities with these users.
Instead, a good newsletter aimed at your real subscribers and includes relevant content is always welcome.
In addition, your email marketing strategy should not fail to include follow-up via email to sales that were about to be closed or that were postponed.
You can use a CRM ( customer relationship management ) program for this. Even simple jotted down reminders to re-write to customer work. The idea is that you do not neglect the contact and that it is as personal as possible.
12. Offers apps, plugins, and notifications
If you already have a website, you could seek the help of an app developer to help you implement yours.
The function of an app can be from remembering information or saving data of interest to buying online or getting in touch.
Before discarding this option, think about this example:
If you have a pastry shop, you could have an app to order at home. Or one that allows you to see the menu and give a discount if you reserve from the application. If you have a grocery store, an application enables you to make a shopping list, save your preferences, or suggest something you already bought before.
That is, it does not matter that your company is not an electronic service. Your app can even be just a tool that gives your contact information, points of sale, location on the map, and blog with news.
Another idea is to develop plugins for browsers from where you can access your site or that offer you some helpful tool, connecting to the app itself and facilitating its use from the browser.
Also, you can seek the help of a web developer to help you create notifications for your site so that your customers will receive them when there is new news.
If you have seen the web pages of local media in recent months, you will know that it is a trend that is gaining importance. This can also be seen on social networks such as YouTube, Facebook, etc.
How to hire help for my advertising strategy?
As you can see, there are many strategies that you can implement, but they should be as personalized as possible. All this, of course, without neglecting the consistency and image of your brand.
That is why you must consult an advertising expert. However, if you are starting your business or an SME, you do not need a huge advertising agency. In fact, the most advisable thing is that you work with an individual advisor who studies your business, your target market—someone to propose ideas tailored to you and within your budget.
It is best to hire the services of a publicist or business advisor by the hour or freelance. That way, you won’t have a fixed contract that you don’t need with an advertising agency. Plus, you save costs and get professional results.
An additional tip:
Compare several offers before choosing. Remember to check the advertiser’s portfolio. You should see if they have developed strategies for companies or brands similar to yours.
In the end, beyond the type of advertising you choose, the important thing is that it be striking, original, relevant, and oriented to your target market. In short, make it effective. And, above all, that it does not cost you more.
To receive and compare between several offers and choose the best one in terms of price, delivery time, and quality of services offered.
Publish your project or requirement to find more easily many professionals willing to help you.
Get to work and start implementing business advertising in your company. Choose the strategies that best suit your needs and grow your brand.
