Top 5 Ideas To Advertise Small Business!

Top 5 Ideas To Advertise Small Business in India

Looking to go big with your start-up or small business but don’t know how to advertise yourself, well, here  is the list of all the cost-effective and result oriented advertising options that will be best for any small business.

Social Media Advertising:

For any small business, internet and social media platforms act as magic wand to publicize product and push sales if used smartly. By creating Facebook Pages of your business or by putting up pictures about the same on Instagram, Snapchat or making interesting videos for YouTube users, one can actually pull the target audiences attention with zero investment.

List of Social media platforms that can be put to work:

• Facebook
• Snap Chat
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Whtsapp
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Quora
• Tumbler
• Pinterest
• Google+

Results they can bring specially for small scale business:

• Can create ‘Buzz’ about the business among segmented audience.
• Arouse curiosity to know more about ‘what you do’, ‘How you do’ and ‘what makes you stand out of the competitors’.
• Images, videos, posts and pages will establish a positive and credible image for the brand or business you are trying to publicise.
• Establishes a connection between the audience and the seller via one-on-interaction options like ‘chat’, ‘comments’, ‘queries’

Search Engine Optimization: 

SEO as it is commonly called is a process of increasing the website traffic by appearing as ‘search results ‘on popular search engines. The search engine optimization is a process to direct traffic to the website by maximum the quantity and quality of content related to your business. The trick is to focus on certain ‘keywords’ that are searched most by the users, so that whenever users type a search word related to your business, the search engines shows your business at first.

List of Top most Search Engines Used in India:

• Google
• Yahoo!
• Bing
• Baidu
• com
• DuckDuckGo
• Lycos
• Yandex
• Alhea
• Wolframalpha

Benefits that small businesses can reap out of search engine  optimization:

• Push traffic to your company’s website through search results.
• Making the target audience aware about the existence of your business.
• Higher conversion rates as SEO optimized websites are user friendly websites that load faster and easier.
• Prospective customers will turn into loyal consumers through repeat visits or by subscribing, following or liking your website.

Auto-Rickshaw ads:

This might surprise you but if you are trying to get mass reach and visibility through minimum investment than picking up auto rickshaw advertising would get great results. It falls under the category of outdoor, out-of-home and transit media. The fact that they are used mostly by middle class audience, students and daily office goers, this type of advertising fits best for small business who are trying to penetrate the middle income level audience.

   Tips and tricks for effective auto-rickshaw advertising:

• Placement of the ad should be such that it gets maximum eye balls from the pedestrians, so opting for back panel ads, hood ads or full auto branding will work best.
• Pick the auto-fleet that covers the location or areas where your target audience is spread. For instance: prime market areas, outside metro stations, outside religious places, colleges, office areas etc.
• Create short, crisp, bold and bright copy for auto rickshaw ads so that riders, pedestrians and drivers of other vehicles too are attracted to the ad.

Newspaper Inserts:

• A very common, highly popular and cost-effective solution to boost your business locally. Inserting pamphlets, brochures, flyers or catalogs in the newspaper works best for creating awareness on mass level about your business. Attractive copy with captions like ‘opening soon’, ‘available now in your city’, ‘ get discount’, ‘bring this coupon and get free gifts’ etc are best to pull audience to your brand and increase business.

Things to take care when opting for newspaper inserts for small  business:

• Pick the newspaper brand carefully, if your target audience in English reading audience of the metro cities then picking up brands like Times Of India, Hindustan Times, and Mail Today would be best but if your audience is Hindi reading audience then newspapers like ‘Danik Jagran’, ‘Amar Ujala’, ‘Hindustan’ etc would be the right choice.
• Create an attractive copy that stimulates call-to-action like ‘avail inaugural discounts’, ‘buy 1 get 1 today’, ‘offer for limited period’ etc.
• Pick the areas of newspaper insert distribution where the target audience is present in large numbers. 
• Digital campaigns for local audience: You might think it to be costly but digital campaigns aimed for local audience will not cost much but will reap great results.

Digital media options for small business:

• In-app advertising
• E-mail marketing
• SMS ads
• Static banner ads during Videos

Right mix of various advertising options listed above can generate brand awareness, brand recall, higher reach and visibility and better brand image for small business with minimum investment. If planned and executed strategically, these small business media buying options can even surpass competition.

Let us know your views for Top 5 Ideas To Advertise Small Business at business [at] myhoardings.com

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