There may not be much money left over for advertising once you get your business off the ground. Traditional print advertising, direct mail, and online advertising can be costly and hard to customize.
Once you’ve registered your business for free on the top search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and bing, there are many other relatively inexpensive things you can do to get customers.
Pay-per-click
Pay-per-click search engine advertising, in which you create an account and pay each time a customer searches for specific phrases, finds your web site, and clicks through to visit you, can be very inexpensive. Each click can cost you as little as a penny. It’s essential to be very specific with the search phrases that you specify and are willing to pay for. Using terms that are too general, such as “wedding gift,” could result in too many people clicking through to your web site only to discover that you do not sell what they are looking for. More specific multiword terms, such as “environmentally friendly wedding gifts” result in fewer clicks, but those you do get will be from customers more likely to buy what you’re selling.
Organic search
In addition to pay-per-click, there are things you can do to raise your company’s standing in the nonpaid (also called “organic”) search engine listing. Frequently referred to as SEO (search engine optimization), there is a whole industry of consultants built around this concept. There are a few things you can do on your own to improve your organic search engine listings and, therefore, drive customers to your site. To improve your search engine standing, you should continually update your website with new information and blog posts, Whittington told BusinessNewsDaily. Continuing to update your site with relevant information will get you repeatedly noticed by search engines.
Social media
Social media outlets, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, are venues that allow you to target particular groups of customers for very little investment. You can create a Facebook profile for free and post videos on YouTube, also free of charge. You can also create very explicitly targeted Facebook advertising for a small fee.
Be warned, however: If you are not familiar with social media, learning to use these sites can take time, and using them regularly can be time-consuming. Success depends on many factors, including whether or not your potential customers are the type who use these services and how effective you are (think talent and time) at using them.
Article Credits https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/
