Advertising Your Business for Free.

Many experts in marketing are recommending that a business should spend somewhere between 2% and 5% of their gross sales on advertising. This can be expensive, depending on the size of your business and you may not be able to afford a direct mail campaign, printed, radio or TV advertisements. However, if you are spending money on advertisements, here are some ways to advertise your business for free.

Advertising Ideas and Offline Promotions

You can submit a press release to you local media in order to encourage positive media coverage. You need to ensure that the story is newsworthy and not simply a business advertisement for you. For example, if you’re business in new, the story might be about how your business is employing local people and how quickly the business is growing. Conversely, if your business is well established, you might draw some attention to it by supporting local community organizations and charities. In addition, you can start a campaign to offer a discount your current customers that send referrals to you. You should be specific about the type of type of that business you are looking for. Also, you can team up with other businesses that provide services that are complimentary and refer customers to each other. For example, if you sell automobiles, network with parts suppliers, body shops, and upholsters.

Advertise Your Business With Your Automobile.

You can place your business’ name on the rear of your automobile, on a decal on the door, on a bumper sticker, in the window, or on your license plate.

Select a Phone Number That People Will Remember.

Even without an 800 phone number, you can select a local 7-digit phone number that will spell a word that is related to your business.

Host Educational Events Such as Workshops and Seminars.

For example, a body shop can host automobile painting classes and a remodeling company can host a workshop on numerous do it yourself projects.

Advertise Your Business on the Internet for Free.

Create a short paragraph about your business that has a link to your business’s website that you can use as signature for all forum postings, informational articles, and email correspondence.

Post some topics that are related to your business on forums on the Internet. This is one way to display your expertise while you are building relationships with a potential client base.

As an expert in your field, write articles and submit them to websites that publish articles for free on the Internet. This is a great way to get attention for your business.

Promote your business by communicating with your customers and receiving their feedback by using social media if that is where your customers are. Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook are great ways to reach potential customers on the Internet.

Be sure that your messages and logo are consistent across points of contact, and always provide a link to your business’s website.

Register the information about your business with directories such as Craigslist, Google, and Yahoo. 

Include a tracking code with your company’s URL in order to determine where your potential customers are clicking through from.

The Best Time to Start Brochure Printing Is Now.

The ease and convenience of everyday living – we owe it all to the advent of new technology at this time and age. Even the printing industry is at its peak.

With all the avant-garde printing equipment and machinery we have today, brochure printing has become the most convenient and refined process it can ever be. If you are a businessperson or simply an individual who seek to advocate or promote something, there are a lot of reasons for you to go into brochure printing. When you print brochures, you actually bring life to your product, service or whatever cause it is you are championing. Here are some of the wonderful reasons why you should start brochure printing today.

The very basic thing you should know is that these are the most hassle-free way of promoting or advertising your product. These are because of the following reasons:

• Your message can be easily sent and disseminated through mail. Your postal services will do the job for you – send over your brochure to the very people you intend to relay your message to.

• If you seek a more personalized manner of connecting with your potential clients, you may also choose to personally hand them out.

• Did you know that these could also be easily spread by leaving them in public places or making them available in events? Put them in a place where people can easily spot them. In no time, if they are eye-catching enough, you have those people grabbing and keeping a copy of your material in no time.

• Brochures can also be printed online through the different printing companies that you can find on the Internet. As long as you are connected to the Net, you can order wherever you are (even within the comforts of your home!) and just how many you want. Moreover, you can have them delivered to you within the number of days you specified. With online printing, this project has even become faster, simpler and more trouble-free.

• To produce at reasonable rates, you can opt for conventional offset brochure printing. However, if you want short-run prints at a minimum of 25 prints, you can settle for digital printing. Your choice will greatly depend on your needs, specifically how long you want them to be produced. For instance, if you want a big volume, you can choose offset printing because it can simultaneously process several templates. On the other hand, if you want to produce fewer at a shorter time, you can go for digital printing.

• Another great thing is that they can come in a variety of sizes. You only need to choose the size that will help you achieve your purpose. Apparently, prices will vary for different sizes but if you pick the right choices, you are sure to get the brochures you want no matter what the size is.

• Moreover, such marketing materials have become more attractive and attention grabbing nowadays because of new technology. The dawn of new printing equipment has made colors come to life. Full color printing makes your brochures a pleasant eye candy. It also captures all the itty-bitty details of your design concept.

Certainly, you make a brilliant move. Any entrepreneur can say that this has become a vital component a marketing plan. All these should give you even more reason to have those brochures printed now more than ever.

Success tips for your business.

All businesses go through rocky patches and it’s how you survive them that will set you up well for the future. However, here are 7 tips for achieving success with your business.

1. It’s very important that you became a business owner for the right reasons. Doing it because you thought it would provide a greater work/life balance is a common mistake people make. However, if you have a passion for the industry and what your role is within it, then you are well on your way to success. Being able to thrive on the independence self-employment provides is also vitally important.

2. It’s important to be patient for success. Just because things look bleak at the beginning, doesn’t mean they’ll always be there. If you believe in what your company can offer and you are set up to deliver it, then keep the faith during the early stages.

3. Getting the right employees in can make a huge difference. Identify your weakest areas and employee staff that complement you. If they share your ambitions for the business two, then they could be well worth looking after for many years to come.

4. Make sure you have the expertise and experience to manage a company. While everyone starts somewhere, having managed staff and projects at a previous employer will be much more valuable for running a business than individual talent.

5. Make sure you base your business in a good location. Many businesses get this wrong and only realise once it’s too late. Spend time weighing up the pros and cons of your location before committing. If you’re already in somewhere and you don’t think it’s right, move elsewhere as soon as you can.

6. If you’re ambitious for success, the urge to expand your company as soon as possible may be considerable. However, it’s important to make the decision at the right time – even if that means holding off until the market is more stable or your business has greater security. Having a solid customer base and good cash flow are vital.

7. Which brings us neatly onto cash flow – one of the biggest hindrances to companies trying to compete in difficult markets. Plan thoroughly from the outset to avoid future problems, but if they do arise, deal with them efficiently through methods such as Factoring and Invoice discounting.

Business Applications Recommended on Facebook for That Assured Success.

Today we are using different methodologies for different business up growth. When we speak of social media it is not all about posting information and making it a bit tacky with all high resolution pictures.

What is the use of all that strenuous hard work when people will not recognize it. In today’s article i will tell you about certain tactics by which you can promote your activities on social media to 500 million users every second.

1. If you are a professional blogger then you can promote your blogs using these applications.

Networked Blogs application – This app shows up on your profile or in your boxes tab and displays your blog and any of the blogs you like to read. It’s a great way to promote yourself and others.

Notes (Default App) – This is a default App found on the right side of your profile. When your blog updates it shows the article in your feed.

Social RSS – This one can be in either a box on your profile or even better, its own tab on your profile.

Simplaris BlogCast – Quick and simple way to put the title of your blog post and a link to it in your feed.

2. To promote your business you can use the following applications.

Define Me – It displays a cloud of words others use to describe your business. This could be your best friend or worst enemy depending on your business and customer service.

GLPrint Business Cards – A flashier business card; gives you options to create your digital business card.

IEndorse – Testimonials are a great way to build the value of your company. This app allows Facebook denizens to endorse your company or find it via the IEndorse business database.

My BusinessBlinkWeb – Create a widget that promotes your business and that others can place on their profiles. This turns your friends, clients, or customers into your advertisers.

Professional Profile – Create a tab on your profile for all of your professional contacts, information, and activities. Very useful if you want to separate the two sides of yourself.

Posted Items (Default App) – Share anything you find on the Internet by posting it to your profile. Videos, blogs, or even articles about you or your company or anything else you find interesting.

Testimonials – It is a way to gather customer testimonials, but it doesn’t have the business database for searching businesses.

3. For communication you can use the following applications:

CalliFlower

Smart Phone – Phone calls are all handled from your FB profile.

SmartMessage Center – Smart allows you to send messages to groups or individuals and gives you back one single result that you can share.

Telephone – Talk, IM, or leave voice messages. I’d say it’s more like a cell phone than a telephone, but you get the idea.

Voice Mail – Voice messaging, voice chat, voice enabled wall posts, and more.

4. For networking you can use the following applications:

Introductions – This application will help you to introduce yourself to the world.

My LinkedIn Profile – Creates a badge from your LinkedIn profile that gets displayed on your Facebook profile.

SocialFly – An application for keeping up with business contacts.

Tag Biz Business Network – Puts a tag cloud of descriptive tags on your profile and participating friends’ profiles.

Workin’ It! – Helps you post and send out your work experience to potential employers or clients and gathers recommendations from your friends and co-workers.

Xing – Hooks into your Xing account (like the LinkedIn app does with LinkedIn) and brings the networking features of Xing to Facebook

5. Now some tools if you are willing for some collaborations.

Huddle by WorkSpaces – Store or share documents, make plans, collaborate on projects, and more (also one of the LinkedIn apps).

My Office – This virtual office will help get everyone on the same page by sharing documents, tasks and more.

6. Audi-video applications to create a strong and easy impact:

Facebook Video (Default App) – Share videos of presentations, product demos, and even company commercials.

PodCast Player – Share audio interviews on your profile, or your company’s podcasts.

SlideShare – If you’re already using SlideShare to share your presentations online then you can connect the account to your profile. If you aren’t already using it you should and start sharing your presentations on your profile

Scribd- It is also used for presentation sharing.

These applications will make your journey to success less cumbersome and more interesting.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sapna_Sood

Let Facebook Increase Your Business in Fun Ways.

What is better a profile or a Facebook fan page for any business?

More than average people use facebook only for personal communications and not for business. You can use this as your advantage. State all your contacts that if they want to follow you in a professional terms then they can use their fan pages.

Facebook Group for a business is a big NO-NO.

You shoul never opt for groups as they are outdated and do not support Facebook Markup Language (FBML) or Facebook Apps, so they are not as interactive. Additionally, don’t create a personal account (a regular Facebook profile page) for your business. You’re supposed to use your real name and you’re also only supposed to have one account.

Make your Facebook page worth remembering to your users?

If you think that only content of your page can do tat for you. Well then you are wrong. Your fan page reflects your business and make it easier for your users to find you easily on Facebook. Once you get 25 fans, you can set up a username which makes accessing your profile a lot easier.

Customize your Fan page.

Start with uploading a profile picture and start filling out the relevant details about your business. Give your contact information and a brief history of your business origin and your future goals.Understand that they are landing on your page because they want information.

If you want to be more creative, start thinking about building upon your profile with the aforementioned Facebook Markup Language (FBML). Here’s how to create a memorable Facebook Fan Page via FBML. In short, you’ll need to install the Static FBML app, add a custom tab, and learn the language, which is very similar to HTML, to create content that is appealing to your customers and prospects.

Specialized content can be your best friend.

Buy something, get something. That’s how Baskin Robbins is doing it besides making an interactive page that visitors might be interested in exploring further.

People interact with brands online because they want deals. Try to offer some every so often.

A good fan page is one that generates leads to your business and that is done with the help of continuous activity. One smart way suggested by most of the social media agencies is that we combine the Facebook fan page with a customised Facebook application so that the entire process could be automated. This means there won’t be requirement for a dedicated person to sit behind your page all day long. You can feed all the post beforehand that can be posted to the wall exactly on time with final adjustments made.

More of community interaction should be promoted.

Ask your fans questions or share cool company or even personal insights with them. Give them a reason to want to communicate. Let your fans add up information in your page.

EdgeRank is Facebook’s own algorithm to determine visibility on a user’s home page. It takes hold from three main components: (1) the affinity score between two users: how often do they interact?, (2) the type of interaction and (3) the length of time since the action was done. Based on this information, fresh content with actively engaged brand adopters are is key. Give them a reason to be actively engaged. This is basic News Feed Optimization.

Integrate your other social streams.

you should show your Facebook fans what you’re up to elsewhere via Hootsuite.

In my next article we will learn something more about social media and facebook.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sapna_Sood

Use Facebook for your Business.

1. Create your profile. You have to create your profile in Facebook and fill in all the asked information so that people can gain trust on you. In case you want to build your business profile, I would recommend you to once go through all the policies shared by Facebook so that you stay out of trouble.
2. There are many applications available in the market which you can easily integrate to your Facebook profile so that your friends can easily see feeds from your blogs and other social media accounts.
3. One piece of advice that I would like to give you is-not to give access to all your business contacts to see your personal and family photographs. Keep it as professional as possible.
4. You can create your own Facebook Vanity URL which you can further share it in your email signatures. This way people will get a chance to know you much better.
5. Post business updates on your wall. Make sure that the updates that you share are interesting and in right grammar.
6. Share important articles and corporate presentations so that people can know moe about your business and your expertise.
7.  Connect all your social medias with one another so that you don’t have to post and repost the data gain and again.
8. You can upload contacts from your email id to find more connections.
9. Use functions such as Find Friend so that you can expand your network.
10. Facebook connect provides you with a functionality of adding social networking features to your personal or corporate website.
11. Facebook ads to provide right information to the target audience.
12. Fan Page for your business so that people can gather relevant information related to your product/services.
13. Post events to your page of upcoming webinars/seminars/conferences so that people can look forward to it.
14. Join different groups that can help you in marketing your product and also gain knowledge from other users.