Low Cost Advertising Ideas

Advertising is a high stakes game with huge price tags for big-time advertising exposure.  Even the small business can benefit from the promotion.  There are a number of low-cost alternatives for advertising that can be quite effective for generating awareness.  In exchange for low cost, some require a little bit of elbow grease. Given below are some of the best low cost advertising ideas that are effective nowadays.

Flyers and Business Card

Printed flyers can be easily created for advertising purposes even on a home computer.  Flyers can be handed out, placed on car windshields, or mailed.  Business cards are an underappreciated advertising tool.  The flip side of a business card can be used to sell a business by providing information on services, products, company motto, or customer service number.

Classified Advertising

Small marketers often neglect a viable and low-cost means of advertising offered by classified advertising.  Whether a small display ad or a text listing, advertising in the classified section of print media gets significant exposure.  Some people live to read the classifieds,  preferring to read magazines and newspapers from back to front.

Free Search Engine Listings

The internet offers a number of ways for businesses to advertise the low-cost way.   Free listings are available on the major search engines like Google or Microsoft’s Bing! or Yahoo! and thousands of other search engines and web directories are an easy way to promote and drive visitor traffic to websites.

PR Releases

Company news releases are a way to get some free exposure for a company or product.  Make friends with writers on local media so that releases get their intended exposure.

Paid Search

Preferentially placed, paid search listings are also by major search engines.  These options can prove to be more costly than some other available internet advertising option when costs are based on click-throughs or another cost per acquisition pricing structure.  The ability to set budget limits can help control the expense of paid search ads.

Millions of webmasters have monetized the space on their websites and it’s possible to have a display ad on some appropriate websites for a relatively small out of pocket costs on these content-oriented sites.  Recent research indicates ads on content sites may be more effective than a search engine or web portal advertising.

Articles and Newsletters

Developing articles establishes awareness of a business as well as credibility as an expert.   Businesses should routinely pin articles for placement on the internet.   A newsletter can be printed and mailed out or even more efficiently, created online for distribution to existing customers.  Articles and newsletters can advertise services or communicate products on sale at little or no cost.