The Ledger Accounting & Business Forums

Gidday fambus, welcome to the forums mate!

Well there's actually a million answers to that question depending on your product, target market etc etc. How about a list then of free to cheap ways to market your product or business online as well as in the real world.

Here we go:

1. This might sound funny if your selling home made cookies but submitting a press release works, even for the home made cookies. You'll be amazed at where your release will get picked up. If you have a web site (if you don't, visit http://bitforge.co.nz ) link to it in your press release for back links to your site.

The best places to submit your press release IMHO:
http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/
http://www.prlog.org/
http://www.1888pressrelease.com/

2. Make sure you have submitted your business to http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter

3. Business cards - They are cheap, especially if you make them yourself. Leave them everywhere.

4. Submit your products to GoogleBase: http://www.google.com/base/

5. Build a Facebook Business Page and start a community focused on your niche.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

6. Sign write your car. You can get magnetic signage for your vehicle for under $100 these days.

7. Customer Service. Even if you have only ever sold one cookie....if you sold that 1 cookie REALLY well, that customer will refer another 5 customers.

8. Bumper stickers. Go plaster them all over the place.

9. Ads in the local papers. Small newspaper ads are cheap and when done correctly offer a really cost effective way to gain exposure for your business.

10. Freebies. Give your product away! If it's as good as you believe it is it will market itself.

I hope some of those ideas help! Anyone else got any?

Lars, that is a comprehensive list. But what do you think of networking, the meeting and greeting type of networking. It may take some time to see any result but they do work particularly for a service based business.

Hi and welcome to The Ledger c-control!

Yes, there's a lot to be said for traditional networking. You can meet potential customers or networking partners in the darnedest of places!

In fact our main tactic to build up the Accounting Directory here at The Ledger involves just that! We'll be hitting the streets and talking to accountants and book keepers as opposed to simply sending them an email invite.

Also a great way to make friends:)

Our company is also a log-cutting company. We are trying to log for people. It's hard work but its work that needs to be done. I think bumper stickers will be a great idea. A nice catchy slogan too.
Thanks for all the wonderful tips!

I would suggest an initial website which you
could outsource fairly inexpensively, some basic
marketing brochures and circulars, and likely
some newspaper advertisements. Also, don't
forget business cards which you can distribute
for free.

I wonder would newspaper adverts be cost effective, I always thought that any sort of media advertising was expensive and the effectiveness of it may not always be quantifiable.

I don't think that advertising online would be a good choice at first. I'm thinking newspaper ads might work. I see others in the local paper for logging jobs and such.

I think classified ads on the net and in the newspaper. The first place I look is the net but for something like logging it might be better in the local newspaper. Also consider doing some leg work, canvas local busness and councils, you never know you may bump into the right person.

We are marketing our small business on the internet. We are using Google and also networking websites. Our company is a lot different than a logging company though. I would think the best way to market for a logging company would be by getting out there and talking to people with large woods. Also, word of mouth would be great here. Once you get some customers under your belt hopefully they tell their friends that need it done too. It's a bit different for you. Once you log they don't need your services again for years.

Hi Robertimo,
I’m happy to hear that you are going to open your own hot dog business. It’s really profitable business in your chosen area. I found an excellent website which could be quite interesting for you. It has all important information related to the hot dog vending business. I hope this will help you.
All the best!

Hi,

Marketing your new small business "online" can be done for free;
here's my tops free tips

1. places.google.com - so people can find you in google maps
2. facebook business pages
3. twitter, wait for people to pick you up naturally
4. blogger.com - owned and crawled by google, register a free gmail, then created a blog, use your keyword in blog title, make 1 to 3 backlinks to your business site
5. digg.com - add your business
6. dmoz.org - human edited directory, loved by google
7. youtube - use a free site like animoto, create small video from you images, upload to youtube, tag the video + backlink to your website
8. search for your business keywords in google + do follow - this will give you relevant forums to go and comment in and add a link back to your website - make sure you make relavnt commants - don't market or sell in formums - be of value id more important
9. ezinearticles - upload your business statement in there
10. docstoc - also upload your business staement in there

Hope this info is off value. These are all free services you can use to create a bit of a footprint of yourself out there. One other tip, whenever you create new profiles for yourself online, take the url & submit to digg + reddit

it is good idea,go ahead you will succed

Those are all great products, i completely agree with marketing your product on facebook and twitter in today's age. it is very easy for someone to find an active page and share it amongst all their friends. i believe even the logging company would benefit from this, because at the end of the day forest owners are just people too who end up wasting a fair amount of time browsing facebook/youtube!