Have you grown tired of trying to figure out creative places to advertise your business? What about plain and simple creative ideas? Let me share with you fifty creative ideas. I hope this list gets your creative juices flowing.

1. Take a small zip close baggy (snack sizes work well) and include the following in it:

Your Business Card, Business Opt Mini Flier a Piece of Candy such as hard candy or a lollipop, mini flier of current host specials, discount coupon (optional) etc.

Hand these out to the bank tellers, retail cashiers, at your kids sport events, every where you go!

2. When I stay at hotels & motels I leave a mini catalog, my business card & discount coupon and the mini coin canister for the maid! I put her tip inside the mini coin canister! I have gotten 3 orders by doing this!

Be creative when you leave tips for Hotel Maids, Waitresses, Waiters, Hair Dressers, etc. Don’t just hand them your business card, make it memorable!

You can also buy cute little beaded change purses at your local dollar discount store!

3. Print out fliers with your contact info (not your personal address), your website address & email address along with any current specials you are offering.

Then contact local area mobile home park offices, apartment complex rental offices, housing developments etc and ask them if you can leave fliers in their office or hang on their tenants doors. Give the office employees a free gift or discount on their personal orders.

4. Contact local area bridal supply stores, bridal gown stores, caterers, tux rental centers, wedding dj’s etc. Ask them if you can leave your business cards & fliers about the great (Company Name) Bridal Gift Registry for them to give to their customers.

Offer store owners a free gift or a personal discount for helping you spread the word about your business.

5. Daycare Centers! They are excellent to contact and leave business cards and/or fliers at!

I print out fliers of just a few items from our Tupperware Children’s line and I attach my business card & a discount coupon. I get a lot of orders by doing this!

So whatever company you represent, find some items that cater to children or to moms and make up a flier!

6. A lot of churches hold a Spring and Fall Fest! Contact them about getting a table or a booth. A lot of times this will cost you under $15.00 for a space!

Make sure you take products with you along with business opt fliers, plenty of catalogs, business cards etc.

Do a contest drawing at these types of events. Make up entry blanks that gather the customer’s info so that you can initiate contact with them again!

7. Join your local area chamber of commerce! They are always holding local business events that you can participate in.

8. College Campuses! Dorms & Housing Students are always looking to spend money! A lot of college students are also looking for an extra income so target them with the Business Opt too!

Drop off fliers and business cards to the College Student Center! They usually have bulletin boards, tables and other things where you can leave your information at for FREE!

9. Contact your local area Welcome Wagon or Welcome to the Neighborhood Group! Ask them about you leaving mini catalogs, fliers, business cards, discount coupons, freebie mini gifts, etc with them.

They are always looking for additional items to place in their Welcome Bags!

10. Contact your local area hospitals and ask for Human Resources Dept. The Majority of hospitals hand out New Mommy Diaper Bags filled with products, samples and other stuff for New Moms who just had a baby!

It’s FREE for you to add in your information! I have gotten party hosts, new customers and new recruits by participating in these types of programs.

11. Contact your local medical offices, particularly Gynecology and OB Offices and Pediatric Offices and inquire about you leaving information with them.

This is a way for you to target Parents of Children with both the home party opt, the business opt and new customer sales.

12. Donate a Product to your local area Radio Station, they have numerous contests and they are always looking for sponsors!

Your donation can be written off as a tax deduction plus you will get FREE Advertising & Business Exposure for your donation!

13. Donate a Product to your local area Bingo Halls! They are always looking for sponsors of their Bingo Prizes! Bingo is BIG in a lot of areas!

14. Call your Chamber of Commerce and find out about Local Area Job Fairs. Get a booth and set up info about the fabulous business opt!

15. Call your Local Area Colleges and find out when their next job/employment fair is. A lot of times you can get a booth or table for less than $35 and you will get a lot of GREAT new recruit leads by participating in events like these.

16. Contact local area car dealerships. I have 2 in my local area that hand out a small packet that I made up for FREE to their customers who come in to take a free test drive!

17. Target your local area gyms! You can get a table space for $20 or less in most cases! Make sure you have 3-5 products on display, plenty of catalogs, business cards and fliers.

18. Network with others in your community who are in home business. Find out what events and activities that they participate in. They are usually “in the know” and can help you get started in networking in your community.

19. Contact Companies in your area to see if you can come in and set up a table in the employee lounge or cafeteria for a employee shopping break! These days a lot of companies will allow you to do this if you ask them!

20. Does your local area TV cable company have a local information channel? Inquire about advertising! These ads will reach thousands of potential buyers for you! I recommend you only use your website address for these types of advertising and not your personal at home address.

21. Contact local small companies and shops to see if you can offer an exclusive discounts or freebie gift to their employees. Companies are always looking for a way to “treat” their employees to specials from the local surrounding community.

22. Small Home Town Newspapers! I don’t get too good of a response when I do big newspaper city ads, however… when I target small town newspapers I usually get a great response. I even had them let me place an ad on their wedding and engagement announcements page which I advertised the Bridal Gift Registry.

So if you are going to do any type of newspaper advertising, inquire about getting your ads on specific pages in the newspaper that targets the group of people most likely to buy from you.

23. Get a low cost outdoor banner printed up with your business information on it. You can usually get them done for $55 or less depending on who makes it.

You can have these outdoor banners displayed at outdoor music/concert events, outdoor children’s sporting events, outdoor adult sport events, outdoor neighborhood block parties, outdoor community events, carnivals, fairs, etc.

24. Take your business on the road during nice weather. Contact local area parks & community centers to see what their schedule of events are and inquire about setting up a booth or table.

This is a great way to network & market your business to those in your community.

25. Community Clipper Coupon Packs & Sales Flier Mailings. These days a lot of communities have mailings such as these, contact them and see how you can participate and advertise your business.

26. Contact small local area businesses such as hair salons, massage parlors, boutiques, banks etc.

See if you can set up a table for 1 week with 3 of your best selling products on it along with some catalogs, fliers, coupons and your business card. Keep a basket on the table for any customer orders which you can follow up on after you return back to pick up your display. Offer the store owner or manager a free gift for allowing you to do this.

You can also offer to donate a prize for a contest if they let you display the prize donated & get a copy of the contestants entry blanks after the promotion closes.

27. Contact local area pizza shops, diners, and deli’s and coffee bagel shops to ask them about advertising on their paper place mats! Customers do read those ads!

28. Contact local area restaurants, bars and clubs and see about advertising on their paper beverage coasters!

29. Local Television Stations are always holding on-air contests & website contests for their viewers, contact them about you donating a prize or gift certificate to sponsor one of their contests! Great business exposure for you!

30. Attend Local Area holiday shopping events. Customers who are ready to spend holiday shopping money turn out for these events by the thousands! You can usually get a booth for less than $50.00 so they are economical to participate in!

31. Hold a local area community Block Party at your home or local community center! Families are always looking for something to do during the nice weather seasons!

Optional: Attend your neighborhood block party and set up a table with your product offerings or samples. Get out there in your community and get your business seen!

32. Get your business listed in your cities telephone book yellow pages! A lot of them also have a coupon section too!

33. You can take this phone book advertising one step further by finding out what company makes the plastic vinyl phone book covers which have local business ads on them and get your business added to it!

34. Get your business information printed up on pencils and hand them out to local colleges and technical schools for them to hand out to their adult students! This keeps your business information in front of them! (Make sure you only donate them to schools with adult students).

35. Get a vehicle banner made for your automobile. I recommend the vinyl window clings or vinyl cling ones that stick to your automobile but don’t scratch or remove the paint. You can easily remove them when washing your vehicle!

36. If your city has a travel guide that tourists request, contact that business and find out how you can advertise in it too!

37. Local City Maps! These days even city maps have advertising on them! You can usually get a small business ad printed on them for an economical price. Don’t advertise your personal location. If you don’t have a business locations then advertise your website address or email address.

38. Contact local area hotels, motels and bed & breakfast inns and ask them if you can do up a Lobby Basket and leave it in their Lobby.

What is a Lobby Basket? You make up little packs of info about your business & products and put them into the Lobby Basket for their patrons to take.

They usually have a pamphlet wall or area too with pamphlets from local area attractions etc. If they don’t have a lobby basket area, inquire about leaving your business info in their pamphlet area.

39. Get your business info printed up on balloons! This is very economical to do! You then distribute them to local community centers, sporting events and other types of places where parents book their children’s birthday parties!

These balloons can be displayed at the birthday party giving you business exposure. You can usually get them done for .3-.8 cents each. Your business name & website address is all you need on them!

40. Find a few other self employed business owners in your community and team up! You can all sponsor a local parade float, parade clowns etc. Make up signs with your business info imprinted on them so that you can receive some great business exposure during the parade!

41. Get some T-shirts printed up with your business information on it (both front & back sides) and hand them out to some friends, family and co-workers and ask them to wear them out and about in the community. This is their FREE gift for helping you to spread the word about your business!

Optional: Get ball caps printed up with your business info!

42. Get some canvas tote bags printed up with your business information printed on it. Find a few ladies who are very active in your community and ask them to use your tote bag and give it to them for FREE under the agreement that they will use it every time they go out in the community for errands & events!

43. Get a license plate made up for your vehicle! If you have your normal license plate on the back of your car, put your business named one on the front of the car!

You can get one with just your business name on it for about $20-$30 per plate!

44. Wear a business name tag every time you go out into your community! Get a Catchy Slogan printed on it such as:

A. Ask me about (your company name) Products!

B. I work from home, you can too!

C. Earn some FREE when you party with me!

45. Local Area Magazines! Does your city publish a City Magazine? If so, contact them about advertising or if they hold contests for their readers offer to donate a product or service for their contest!

46. Check out your local area State Fairs & Community Carnivals, there are always a lot of them going on during seasonal weather.

Ask about getting a booth or table & set it up with your business information! People love to shop at Fairs & Carnivals and they are looking to spend money

47. Get some Business Card Magnets printed up and hand them out every where you go! Have your friends & family pass them out too!

People are more apt to keep a magnetic business card compared to a regular one which gets shoved into a drawer or wallet. By having a magnetized card, your business is kept in front of the potential customer/client.

48. When you give gifts to family, friends, neighbors, co-workers etc. make sure you give them gifts from your own company! These allow other people to see & touch your gift meaning FREE business exposure for you! (Plus, you bought the gift from yourself so you are saving money!)

49. Invite your spouse’s co-workers over to your home for a little mingling party! Serve some refreshments or do a cookout BBQ and make sure you have a table set up with some product displays!

If you sell kitchen or food products, make sure you use them!

50. Do a neighborhood children’s shopping party!

I do this before Christmas and again before Mother’s Day. I invite the neighborhood kids to come by and shop for gifts for their parents and loved ones. They enjoy shopping on their own and parents enjoy a small break from the children!

To make this successful make sure the products you are offering are economical, I try to keep them under $25.00 each with most being around $10.00 each. Have a table set up with some inexpensive crafting supplies and let the children make their own greeting cards to go with the gifts they have purchased or have a gift wrapping table set up so they can personally wrap their gifts!

Article Source:

http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=April_Decheine

For businesses serving their local market, life has gotten easier. At least that’s the case for those savvy enough to take advantage of the huge marketing gift Google has offered them.

What’s remarkable is the fact that Google has created pages not just for those businesses who already have web sites, but for millions of businesses who don’t.

The trick though is to “Claim” them, and once claimed to get them to appear on the Google 7 pack within your local market place.

Claiming is easy, but to stay on top of the local market you need to take several additional steps. First you must fill out your information as completely as possible.

In addition, you will need to accumulate citations from other sources and get reviews if you are to maintain a top billing. In the near term, for most businesses, the initial challenge is to get their forms to the 100% complete criteria. Since less than 3% of all Google pages have been claimed so far, you can discover yourself on the first page of Google already, or if not, significantly increase your chances merely by claiming the site.

But as more and more businesses learn the ropes, it appears that those who do the best job of completing the form will be ranked higher than those who only do a partial job.

If you just do the basics, company name, street address, city town, state and zip, plus your main phone you will get credit for 40% of completion. Adding your website and email address will add another 15%. If you don’t have a web site, you can set up a Squidoo page or even a Facebook fan page and use that.

The website spot is worth 10% so it’s important to get a web address of some sort. It’s estimated that even today, as many as 50% of small businesses do not have a web site. That will soon change.

Putting in any type of description of your business will add 5%. But don’t just put in something to get the 5%. Let your prospective customers know what you can do for them. Remember we are doing this to attract customers.

Next be sure to add hours of operations. At first I didn’t because I am kind of a 24/7 operation, working from home as I do. Google allows you to not list any times, but you will get 5% for filling out your hours. And another 5% for toggling any of the payment options.

All of this is pretty straight forward, but what Google loves to see are pictures and videos. They have space for 10 pictures and they want you to use all ten slots to get full credit. So get out your digital camera and take pictures of your logo, your front door, yourself, your staff, your product, yourself at work, your cat or dog or what ever. Clearly the more business and value related these pics are the better they will sell your prospective customers.

Don’t think these need to be studio portraits done by a professional. But that said the better the image the better the impression. This rule is also true for the last big hurdle for many businesses which is the video. At this time it appears that you only need to put up one video to get full credit. This can be as simple as a quick video with you digital camera or phone to a power point presentation outlining the key reasons to do business with you.

Finally, there is a place for additional details. Putting in a one line statement here will add a final 6% to your completion score.

Your first objective is to claim the site. The second is to fill out the form completely, third is to go back and improve the quality of the content. Once done, you will have a Google Places Site that will show off you business properly.

Your Google Places listing is the new Yellow Pages, and you want your listing to be accurate and persuasive. In the near term, this may be all you need to benefit from a first page listing in your market niche in your community. In the future you will need to do more to hang on to that spot, but we will talk about that in future posts.

Now before I leave, let me share with you one more benefit you probably didn’t realize. By setting up a Google Places Page, you have leapfrogged many other competitors of yours who have web pages but are not set up for Mobile phones.

Half of internet traffic is likely to be from mobile devices in 2011 and not traditional computers. Your Google Places page is set up to show up properly on people cell phones, which will give you access to this rapidly growing class of customers. Most of your competitors, even those with big classy websites are probably not set up to be seen properly on cell phones. That’s a real advantage to those who are wise enough to take quick action and get themselves seen.

Article Source:

http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Earl_Netwal

Google Places, formerly Google Local, is easily the most powerful free marketing tool available to local businesses. Introduced in March 2004, Google Local displays local business information at the top of many of Google’s organic search results accompanied by a map. As of June 2010, Google Places listings consist of 1, 3 or 7 businesses for most searches. Considering that most localized searches provide millions of organic search results, showing in the top 7 of Google Places can be invaluable to a business.

Breaking into the top 7 takes knowledge and time and staying there takes effort. It all starts with claiming and optimizing your Google Places local business listing.

Visit Google and search for Google Places. Register for an account. Follow the bouncing ball until you can click on the button that says “Add a Business”.

As a quick aside, it is assumed that anyone who would read this knows that Google Places only allows one listing per phone number. While you can in fact create multiple listings with the same number and reap the benefit for a short time, eventually you’ll find that all of your listings have disappeared into the void. Don’t play games with Google Places. It isn’t worth the time and effort it takes to undo the damage should you cross the dozens of arbitrary, invisible boundaries that Google has in place to try to make the entire process “fair” for every business.

The first page of the submission form is mostly fill in the blank, but there are 3 important opportunities to optimize the listing.

Company/Organization: Choose your business name wisely. No one audits the listings to verify that the company name matches your incorporation documents, but be careful. If you company’s legal name is “Paul’s Professional Services, Inc.”, you need to carefully tweak it for the purposes of Google Places optimization. Two common methods are to add a keyword descriptor or your primary city. For example: “Paul’s Professional Painting Services” or “Paul’s Painting Services of Dallas”. Monkey with your company name too much using obviously manipulative methods for cramming keywords into the field and you’ll eventually find that your Google Places listing has been relegated to a black hole by Google. Typically, this is the direct result of your competition reporting your listing to Google. Simply conduct a Google search for “locksmith Google spammers” and you’ll find some insight on why you do not want to get on the bad side of Google Places.

Description: Carefully craft a 200 character description of your business focusing almost exclusively on your key products and services. Do not waste space here for marketing speak such as “Proudly serving the DFW area since 1974″. Do not waste space here by including geographic references. The geography is almost entirely controlled by the city you list for your address. Inclusion of additional cities does virtually nothing when it comes to optimizing your Google Places listing.

For our hypothetical painting company, Paul’s Professional Services, an optimized description would go something like:

Residential and commercial painter specializing in interior and exterior painting. Services include wall painting, ceiling painting, textures, faux finishes and color matching. Free estimates.

Note that the example include not only the company’s top services, but also includes multiple uses of the primary keyword in various forms – “painting” and “painter” are the top two keywords in searches according to Google’s Keyword Tool. In addition, “free” is a top search word for virtually any search phrase.

It is important to remember that the description is designed to reach a broader search audience – not win awards on Madison Avenue. Keep it simple and include your top keywords. 200 characters is not a lot of room, so make sure not to waste space.

Category: Google Places requires the use of at least one standard category. Begin by typing your top keywords and choose the most relevant category. Google Places provides the ability to include 5 categories. Use them. If your top keywords are not standard categories, then use one or two closely related standard categories and use the remaining three slots for specific keywords.

For our hypothetical company, the categories might look something like:

Painter (Standard)

Painting Contractor (Top keyword search / Custom Category)

House Painter (Top keyword search / Custom Category)

Commercial Painter (Top keyword search / Custom Category)

Handyman (Standard, but an extremely popular related search term)

NEXT. Page Two of submission form.

The Service Areas and Location Settings options are relatively new and are designed to allow a business to establish a service area if the company does not have a storefront of some sort. Initially, choosing a service area (“Yes, this business serves customers at their locations”) appeared to hinder the optimization process. While the jury is still out, Google continues to tweak this feature. If in doubt, complete the option accurately for your business.

Business hours and payment options are purely optional and serve little if any value to the optimization process. Potential customers certainly will find the information useful.

Google Places provides the ability to add up to 10 photos and 5 videos (from YouTube.com). Make sure you always use keywords to name your photos and take advantage of the “tag” functions provided by YouTube.com. The impact on Google Places traffic is limited, but any impact is good.

Additional details: Google’s examples are virtually useless and very misleading. To optimize your listing, create a table of your key products and services using as many keywords as possible. Each detail consists of two fields with a maximum space of 200 characters each. An example of an effective use of these fields for our hypothetical company would be:

Interior & Exterior Painting Contractor specializing in: Wall painting, Ceiling painting, Floor staining, Epoxy Floor coatings, Texture paint finishes, faux finishes, color matching, proper surface preparation

The colon is the separator between the two fields. Include as many additional details about your company, your products and your services as possible.

Feel free to include service areas as one of the Additional Details for informational purposes, but do not expect it to cause your Google Places listing to show in those cities.

SUBMIT.

The new Google Places local business listing will not be active until verified. Usually, verification can be completed by triggering a phone call from Google’s computers to the phone number of record for the listing. In some instances, Google requires verification via a postcard mailed to the address of record for the listing. Postcards can take up to 5 weeks to arrive. Once verified, the real work begins.

Article Source:

http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_J_Dumas

Okay, well these “new business opportunities“ might not be that new, but I bet most of you haven’t used them in your business. Claiming they will double your sales is a big claim as well. I’ve seen it happen over and over again so don’t doubt it’s potential. These 3 hot spots are places where you can interact and mingle with other business owners. That’s right. I’m talking about setting up business to business marketing strategies to increase your business.

There really isn’t anything that can match joint ventures. No matter what happens to other areas of marketing as time passes, you will always get great results when working with other business owners. Google might bump your website down to the 3rd page…there went your search engine traffic. Your direct mail campaign or radio ad might swamp this year…ROI(return on investment) down the drain. But guess what, you can always go talk to your friendly non-competing business owners and agree upon a mutual relationship to help each other out. That will never go away.

So, what are these three hot spots to find the new business opportunities? Well, let’s start off with a simple one.

Your Local Phone Book

Yep. It’s as easy as that to find new business opportunities for you. Make a game plan of all the possible businesses that could benefit both you and themselves by both working together. Now, get on the phone or start visiting these businesses. It’s as simple as that to find new businesses to work with.

Check Your Local BNI

The BNI organization is a group designed for opening networking and referrals between small businesses in your local area. It’s a great way to meet other business owners looking to build their business. These are the type of people you want to look for. It won’t do you much good looking for a business owner that is striving for more.

Go to your local BNI meetings. More then likely you won’t get much of an opportunity to speak about your business in the first couple meetings. You will be able to mingle though. Get business cards. Pass out information about what you provide. Just make your name be known. When you find a business that you believe there can be a mutual agreement made, let the business owner know.

Meetup.com

Aww, meetup.com. My favorite place to find local business owners. This website is just great for setting up casual get togethers with like minded business owners. I’ve found more new business opportunities from this website than any other option. Get on there and create a luncheon meeting. It’s something simple and doesn’t take much time.

I’m telling you how to double your business in the next couple months. Do what I say and you will see the results. I can guarantee it.

Article Source:

http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Travis_Petelle

When being made redundant and looking to start a new business venture, do you worry about being one of the many new start ups who fail within the first few years? Do you wonder what action others’ have taken to ensure success?

Remember the secrets of success are not the same for everyone, and will depend on your own very individual set of circumstances. Take Linda for example, she has recently recovered from a long period of illness and rather than go back to paid employment, felt the time was right to start her own business. An old hobby of Linda’s was aromatherapy massage, so she took a refresher course to brush up on her skills and updated some of her equipment.

Linda started very slowly, initially working with a maximum of one or two clients per week, taking plenty of rest in between times and gradually building up her appointments. This was to ensure that the pressures of handling a new venture, in addition to very physically demanding work would not give her a relapse and make her ill again.

By working to one of her strengths – engaging people, Linda was able to generate business during these tough times. Linda is one of those people who is very good at talking to strangers as though they are long lost friends, and if you are with her in a wine bar or restaurant, she will have the waiter sit down and talk through the menu, whilst at the same time extracting his or her life story.

Linda had some leaflets and business cards printed, and spent a couple of days going around the local hairdressers and hotels in her area, telling people what she was doing and asking whether there was any way she could work with the establishments to their mutual benefit. Just two weeks of doing this and she had the offers of spaces in three different businesses, with invites to two trade fairs where she could set up a stall. Now six months later Linda has a thriving aromatherapy massage business and she is getting ready to diversify in to other areas.

Now this approach would not have suited everyone – it was only Linda’s natural flair for getting on with people that made this a success. For someone else, extensive advertising may have been the right route. Or getting a piece printed in a local paper. The point is that one of the keys to YOUR success is working to your strengths, and tailoring other success factors to your own individual set of circumstances.

Are you working to your strengths?

Article Source:

http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Allison_M_Galbraith