Question: Exposure: Website & Product

Kathy,

I am in the outdoor advertising business, which is very effective. Internet advertising is also effective. In fact, Outdoor and internet advertising is the way to go. Newspaper and Magazine advertising is more expensive, but less effective.


Jay

Hi Kathy,

It's best to start conservatively with a few tools (both online and offline) so that you can measure what is effective and where your money is best used and also be able to commit regular time to them. Marketing is one of those things that is so simple that it's complex. You have to choose a few things that you feel comfortable with and stick with them. They have to be a part of your day (if you can't do it daily you can do it every other day or a few set days per week). I commit a regular time daily in the a.m. for online marketing/efforts and in the early afternoon for cold-calling & offline marketing efforts. On Fridays, is my reward day where I typically hang out or take a long weekend.  Here are just a few marketing tools I would recommend to get you started:

Online-
1. Placing your website address in a clever email signature line
2. Sending out a basic monthly newsletter with an informative how-to article and perhaps a promotion for your regular customers
3. Blogging (once weekly) about relevant subjects and news on your subject matter
4. Interviewing on online radio shows
5. Using a social networking tool such as facebook or twitter (provide information in addition to light promotion). People want to get to know you first.

Offline-
1. Small line ad for yellow pages
2. Pitching your company and 'business story' to local media (community newspaper)3. Public speaking/hosting 'craft' workshops to women groups/children's groups/mom's groups, or doing tables at markets/small trade shows etc.
4. Cold-calling/Flyers
5.  Volunteering with your favorite local causes/serving on organizing committee

I also have an accountability group. So it is a group of other small business owners I know and we do checks and balances on each other to make sure we are each making our cold calling everyday or staying active on social networking sites. It is easy to get out of routine or sometimes you might spend too much time on some activities and not enough on others. So it is nice for someone to call or send you a message and ask you did you do your XYZ for the day.

Kathy~

   Congrats on your biz!

  I work for www.prdepotchicago.com , we specialize in marketing small and new businesses by effectively combining PR, Online and Search Engine Marketing. Also, my blog http://marketingyourbusinesssandpr.blogspot.com/ lists helpful marketing tips.

M. Niccolinas Soto
info@prdepotchicago.com
www.prdepotchicago.com
The antidote to expensive advertising.

PRDepotChicago.com
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Take your business to the next level.

For your website, having it optimized for search engines. The difference between conversions from page 1 to 2 is huge...even from the first 5 spots on page one to the last 5 is quite different.
I'm talking about natural results not paid results.

For those who are wondering: Natural or Organic results are the search results that show up in the main body of a search engines pages...or S.E.R.P.S. (Search Engine Results Pages)

Paid results show up in 1 of 3 spots...either at the very top in the colored box, at the very bottom in the colored box or in the right column.

Yahoo has 2 kinds of paid results, the first as mentioned above and then the second shows up where Natural results are, so you think you're looking at a Natural result when in actuality somebody has paid to be there...Its called SSP which stands for Search Submit Pro. It's done with xml feeds that still have to be optimized and it is cheaper than Pay Per Click because it's a flat rate rather than a charge every time someone clicks on your ad.

I think having your site optimized would be a good start.