Advertising in a Nutshell

Simple Ways to Get Your New Business Noticed

Nov 20, 2009 Joni Chng

For a new small business, an effective advertising strategy is crucial to success. Find out three tested and true methods to spread the word without spending much.

However confident you may be of what you are selling, your products and services are only as good as the amount of people willing to pay money for them. That is where effective advertising comes in. As a small business, you might not be able to afford a flashy TV commercial or glossy print advertisement yet. However, there are minimal costs and effective ways to get the word out.

Free Advertising: Word of Mouth

People are more likely to believe in a product or service if it was recommended by someone they know who have tried it or if it is an established brand name.

In his book The Likeability Factor, author Tim Sanders wrote about the common ground between a likable personality and a trusted brand name product, “There’s too much information in today’s world…We look for shortcuts, and those shortcuts are called brands. The reason you buy Tide detergent at the grocery store is that you don’t want to read fifty labels. You trust tide because you already know it works.”

Getting free word-of-mouth advertising can be challenging for the budding entrepreneur, since you are working on building a solid reputation. The best place to start is your personal connections – friends, family and casual acquaintances. Whenever you get the opportunity, talk about your new venture and kindly ask them to spread the word.

Let them know how to reach you should they or anyone they know be able use what you are offering.

Consignment: A Win-Win Situation

If there are trustworthy acquaintances that happen to own an established business in a similar or related trade, offer to help each other out through consignment sales - whereupon you make a deal with a fellow entrepreneur that allows you to place products and promotional materials on their business premises. In return, a percentage is offered to the business owner for every item sold on their premise, usually around 10-20%.

For service-centric businesses, this arrangement could also work if you can get an established business to agree to outsource jobs to you during peak seasons. On the other hand, if you are sales savvy enough and opportunity presents it, you can even offer to be the consigner and help sell others’ products or agree to refer clients to them for a percentage of the profit!

Technology: Can’t Do Without It

With everything else looking to go online these days, consider buying a domain name and building your aspiring enterprise an official website so potential clients can find you through search engines, whether on your own or by hiring a professional web designer (hint: go for a freelancer rather than a multimedia firm).

Alternatively, a free and easier way to establish and maintain a web presence is by starting a blog. Besides a web site, other possibilities to advertise your business online include selling on auction sites and posting on classified sites.

Plenty of small and medium-sized businesses rely on eBay.com for their clearance sales. Along with clearing slow-moving inventory, selling on eBay can also gain more exposure for your business. So when listing items on the auction site, include a link to your official web site and store address.

Source:

The Likability Factor by Tim Sanders

The copyright of the article Advertising in a Nutshell in Advertising is owned by Joni Chng. Permission to republish Advertising in a Nutshell in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Selling on consignment