Advertising My Business – Where Do I Start?

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“Where to start” is a common question I hear when businesses look at the vast range of advertising services available on the internet.  Try not to start off by just Googling keywords to see what comes up, as it will just add to the problem of “where to start”. 

You can Google “Free Advertising”, “Free Local Advertising”, “Business Directories”, “Free Business Directories, “Business Advertising” etc etc and the lists of results will be endless and daunting.

There are many ways to advertise your business online and the range of costs and services can be extreme and confusing so here are my top 5 questions to ask yourself before you make any decisions or even look on the internet:

1 - What is my online advertising budget & how do I set it? – more info

2 - What is my business trying to promote? (a range of products/services or a particular one) – more info

3 – Who is my businesses target market? (a specific sector or the public in general) – more info

4 – What do I want to say about my business/product(s)/service(s) – more info

5 – What supporting information can I display? (Images, Video, Menu/Price List/Brochure, Special Offers) – more info

Note: I will break down each of these 5 questions in other blogs and provide some detail in what to consider for each one.

Writing the answers to these questions down and making sure you have ready any marketing materials (photos, videos, documents etc) before you start searching will really help to make this a much more painless task.

Otherwise you will start to register your business with a website you have chosen only to find that you do not have a digital image/logo to hand half way through your registration.

Answering these 5 questions will also help you think about what promotional materials or information you do/don’t have.  It will also give you time to prepare these before you start advertising your business.