Although small businesses tend to run very lean operations, it doesn’t mean that you can neglect investing in marketing your brand. There are several excellent resources you can utilize to advertise your small business for a small cost, while still getting large returns. By taking advantage of a few simple tips, you can increase your online profile without spending a great deal of money.

Internet

One of the biggest advantages of the internet is how it has shifted the balance of power between large and small advertisers. Brand awareness campaigns used to be the purview of national advertisers, as television, radio and even print advertising can be expensive for businesses that serve just a local community. With geo-targeted display advertising, this has changed. By restricting ad impressions to viewers within a specific geographic range near your location, you now afford to build local awareness of your brand to compete effectively with national marketers.

Email

Direct mail has long been a favorite for small business advertising, but more and more people view mailers as junk. People do, however, read their email on a daily basis. When you advertise your small business with email, you can reach thousands of customers in one message which will help to increase the traffic to your website and ultimately increase the customers to your business.

Social Networking

Social networking sites are free to sign up and they can potentially reach thousands of new customers for your business. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Pintrest and LinkedIn are all excellent resources to increase traffic to your business, because they turn loyal customers into advocates for your brand.

Forums

Search the internet for forums that discuss topics that are related to your business. There are thousands of forums to choose from and people visit them on a regular basis. Introduce yourself to as many forums as possible so you can advertise your business, talk about your products and get information from potential customers about what they would like to see in a business.

Exchange Links and Articles

Content marketing does not stop with your own website. Visit websites and blogs that are relevant to your business and exchange links to your businesses. Find sites that are similar to yours and offer to write a guest post. When you write a guest post, the majority of blog owners allow you to hyperlink to your business in the article/blog post.

Marketing a business is all about reaching customers where they can be found, which today means online. Regardless what type of business you run, your online presence is now more important than ever, as a digital storefront that helps let prospective customers learn about your services and keep you top of mind.

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This is post was written by Leslie Van Zee of Vantage Local – experts in local online display advertising. For correspondence or questions about online display, visit www.vantagelocal.com or followed on Twitter at @VantageLocal.

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