Posted by Wendy on October 15, 1999 at 13:37:02:
In Reply to: How to get your name out there posted by Kathy on October 11, 1999 at 19:47:46:
Hi, Kathy,
There are many ways to get people to know about your business, and most of them don't cost a lot of money.
If you have a small, local newspaper (we have one locally that is delivered FREE to all of the residents in the area), you can place an ad at a fairly reasonable rate. An advertisement in my local paper costs about $28.00 for three weeks and supposedly reaches 27,000 homes. Not a bad deal.
You might also print up flyers. I don't know how computer savvy your are, but with the current software available, nice flyers can be designed and printed for next to nothing. All you need is some paper and some people to hang the flyers for you when you're finished.
If you have school age children, you can spread the word through volunteering at the school. Last year, I typed the school newspaper for my son's class, and in return, they gave me an ad. This year, I plan to purchase an advertisement in one of the local Jr. High year books. I don't know what kind of response I'll get from the ad, but even if I don't get any new clients I enjoy supporting the schools.
Also, I purchased iron-on transfer paper and made t-shirts that advertise my web site. My son wears one to school. A lot of people have asked him about the site. I can't say for certain that it's given my site any traffic, but it was an inexpensive project that was fun for me, and gave my son another article of clothing.
Finally, you can design and publish a web site for nothing. There are several sites that offer free web pages to their members - www.women.com is one. The only problem with them is that if you don't know anything at all about writing HTML code, you are very limited in what you can do with the page. But, it's really easy to design a nice looking site - nothing fancy, but nice. After you design your web site, make very careful note of the address. Then, you can add your URL to several search engines. It's free to ad the URLs, if you do it yourself.
Just a few ideas. Remember, however, the best advertisement is word of mouth. Tell everyone you know, and have some business cards printed or make some yourself.
Wendy