Below you will find a selection of paid advertising ideas that can be used for an offline or online business. Its not an exhaustive list but there is certainly enough good quality ideas for you to promote your business with.
PAID ADVERTISING IDEAS
1) Pay Per Click (PPC)
This is one of the most effective advertising options out there although its also one of the most complicated.
These type of adverts are the ones you see on the right hand side of the search results page whenever you do a search through Google or Yahoo etc. You may even see some at the top of the search results page. There the small advert with a title, a couple of lines of content and a website address.
The great thing about PPC is its very targeted. You decide who will see your adverts. This means you can set your ads to only appear in front of people who are looking for what you do.
The way it all works is you create an account with one of the PPC companies. You then create a few adverts and then you link these adverts to keywords. Keywords are the words that people use when doing a search online.
EG. You have a website/business that is all about golfing holidays in the UK. You create an advert that reflects this. You then attach keywords such as, UK golfing, UK golf holidays to your adverts. Now when someone types into Google, UK golf holidays, your advert appears on the right of the search results page. They then click on your advert and are taken to your website.
There is a bit more to it than that but that’s the general idea.
Now the reason its called Pay Per Click is because you only have to pay for your advert when someone clicks on it. And you set this price before hand. You can set whatever price you like but the deal here is you really want to be on the first page of Google/Yahoo to make sure your ads are seen and this may not come cheap depending on the keywords you are using.
You can typically expect to spend at least £0.15 / $0.20 for every click but don’t be surprised if your paying £2 / $3 a click. You can set a daily budget to keep things safe. But my advice here is to have at least £200/$300 monthly budget and do your homework before hand.
The biggest and best is Google Adwords but Facebook as well as Yahoo have their own versions.
2) Newspapers/Magazines.
Remember well folks even in this day and age people will still want to read newspapers/magazines rather than looking at a computer screen for their news or gossip. And the classified section is the most read part.
Yes their readership levels are in decline but that’s great news for you because deals can be had. A tip here is to always ask for a discount and to run your ad for at least 4 weeks. Some people need to see it a few times before they will take action.
3) Drop Cards.
These are business sized cards that will have a tempting message on there about your business with either a phone number or a web address. There not your normal type business cards. These will be brightly coloured (yellow background with black writing is proven best) and the message will intrigue people enough to pick it up and respond.
The cards want to be in your face, not nicey nicey but bold enough for people to take note and action. Tell them exactly what you want on the card and no more.
The example below is a drop card for someone promoting a home business.
Struggling to Find a Job
Why not Work Online
Visit
www.yourwebsite.com
TODAY
Don’t tell them everything but leave them wondering enough to keep the card and visit your site.
I carry these types of cards around with me all the time and I leave them everywhere such as at cash machines, on a restaurant table, on a bar, car park machines anywhere where I think someone will see it and pick it up.
For me www.Vistaprint.com is the place to get them. Get the cheapest you can (£/$20 for 500). Simply start with a blank card in Vistaprint add your colour then your text and get them delivered.
4) Online Classifieds
There are thousands of online classifieds available for your business. They are very easy to use. Just think of them as an online newspaper ad but normally a lot cheaper. Yes you can find free ones but its often best to go for the paid version.
AdlandPro.com This is a great site for finding lots of classified advertising avenues under one roof. Lots of it free, lots of it paid. Or you can be more specific and search through Google for classified advertising in your particular market.
5) Flyers.
Get your local printers to do you a batch of flyers and start posting them where your target market is.
A great place is outside seminars/conventions that are all about what your business is about. Put them on cars or in peoples hands but get out there.
As I am in the business of teaching people how to make money from home I would hand out flyers to people leaving a train station after a day at work or put them on their cars in the station car park. Think about where your customers would be and go post flyers there.
6) Shop Windows.
Get your adverts in the windows of your local shops. The ads I am talking about are postcard sized. They will have a bit more information than a drop card (see No.3) and of course they cannot take it home so make sure its easy for them to get your details.
7) Banner Ads.
These are eye catching adverts that can be placed on websites similar to your own. They are sometimes animated or simply static but they are always eye catching. You can either have the banner ad link back to your own website or you can have them linked to a product your promoting.
The best way to use them is to place them on a website that gets a lot of traffic/visitors and is in the same business market or a similar market as to what you are in.
Yes you are going to have to pay the owner of the website to do this and their price will depend on how much traffic the website gets plus it will depend on where the banner is placed. The home page will be the most expensive placement.
My advice is to first find some suitable websites to place your banner ad on. Once you do look for the contact us page and make an enquiery as to what they would charge for an advert on their site and what size advert it would be. You will want to know how long the advert stays on their as well.
When you have this information you then get the banner made. I personally would go to www.fiverr.com where someone will do it for $5. The site has a search bar in the top right that you can type “banner ads” into to find relevant people.
Once the ad is made send it over to the website owner along with your payment.
8) Ezine Ads.
These are adverts you place on online magazines (ezines). There are literally thousands of these online magazines in all different types of markets.
And all of them have readers who have agreed to receive a newsletter, be it daily, weekly, monthly that will contain these adverts.
These readers will be people who are already very interested in what you have to promote and these magazines/Ezines can have many thousands of subscribers. Whats great is the reader is happy to receive these adverts and they will be open to the idea of looking at other websites and products similar to what their interested in.
What you need to do first is find a suitable Ezine mag for your particular business. So as always do a Google search. EG; if your business is golf then you would search for “Golf ezines”
When you have found a suitable Ezine mag look for a link on the website that lists their advertising rates. If not look for a contact us page and ask them their rates. Also look for where you sign up for their newsletter and sign up yourself to see if its any good for your advert.
What you want to do is get as much information together about the Ezine to see if it is a suitable place to put your advert.
Expect to pay around £30/$45 for a basic advert.
To find out exactly how to use this method have a read of my article all about Ezine advertising.
More Help With Advertising
If you would like to implement some more advertising ideas then take a look at my article about Free Advertising
I am also available for any help when it comes to setting up or running an online business. Just leave your details either on my Contact Me Page or my Coaching Course Page. I will then get back to you for a talk.
