Advertising Your Business: Free VS. Paid
Written by Vera Raposo
on October 11th, 2008 / 6 Comments / Print this
Advertising can be a very big topic among small business owners. It is not uncommon for small business owners to feel a little lost when it comes to advertising. There are so many choices out there that it can be a little confusing when trying to figure out the best advertising options.
Some business owners may feel that paid advertising will be their best option and seek out those choices. Others may be on a small budget that does not allow for much paid advertising. Because of this, they turn to free advertising.
Each group may be wondering if they are making the right choice and if they should keep doing what they are doing. In this article we will talk about the differences between the two types of advertising and give you the pros and cons of each.
Paid advertising includes things such as ads in magazines, newspapers, on websites, blogs, ezines, pay-per-clicks and so forth. The benefit is, of course, the exposure that paid advertising can bring. Unfortunately, the cost of these ads can get expensive, especially if the ad will be seen by a large audience.
Free advertising includes things such as social networking, commenting on blogs, article distribution, sending out press releases, posting on forums, and so forth. The main benefit of free advertising is that a business can receive a lot of exposure without paying out of pocket.
On the other hand, it can take up a lot of time to actively participate in free advertising and it is hard to say if it will bring in the exposure the business is hoping for. Sometimes a business can get lucky and their free ad will generate lots of traffic, but that isn’t something a business should depend on.
While some business owners may think they need to decide between the two, a third option is take part in a little of both types. A business owner can set a dollar budget for paid advertising and a time budget for free advertising.
By doing a little of both, the business owner has the potential for increased exposure while staying on a fixed budget.
The website’s statistics program will help the business owner stay on top of where their traffic is coming from and help them decide where to continue investing their time and money.
Another option is to use an ad tracking system, which will automatically track the each of your ad’s clicks and conversion rates.
Advertising is an essential part of owning a business. Without it, a business is going to have a very hard time finding new customers. By getting creative and participating in both free and paid advertising, a business owner can develop an advertising plan that truly works for them.
6 Comments to “Advertising Your Business: Free VS. Paid”
October 11th, 2008
2:28 pm
Hey Vera,
I reckon in the small business end of the market, we spend to much TIME and not enough money around our branding. Often because businesses are under capitalised and the up front marketing needs to be done out of capital rather than revenue of the business.
I’m not quite sure how to cure it BUT I do know that the smaller the business the more likely they are to not value their time and put way too much time and not enough money into many aspects of their business, not just advertising.
October 11th, 2008
10:56 pm
As to me especially for small businesses the best way to promote itself is personal relations with the clients!
October 13th, 2008
11:50 am
Vera,
Nice post!
From my experience, free advertising and other web-related free ‘thingies’, are indeed time consuming and questionable in effectiveness.
It’s true that combining both paid and free advertisement campaign will yield the most resource effective results.
Cheers!
October 14th, 2008
1:30 am
Did you tried craigslist for advertising your business? If yes, how was the response?
October 14th, 2008
5:53 am
indeed. making use of a combination makes sense to me. would be a shame not to use free ads at all since… well, they’re free.
October 17th, 2008
7:15 am
@Andee - You better believe it! Small business owners hardly think about branding at all, never mind putting money or even time into it. Here’s the thing… I would often have conversations with other business owners in the mall while it was a slow time of year. Not once did we ever sit down to discuss how branding our business would be beneficial. We talked about getting customers and making more money, especially in the slow time. What we failed to realize is that the better we brand our business, in the end it will make us more money. It’s getting that into the minds of business owners so they realize it’s a must.
@Andrey - I love personal relationships with clients, but on the same hand I do love to get the work done better so they will remain happy.
@Noob - Glad you enjoyed the post
Did you ever get my email? I sent you one about a week ago.. you can email me back at smallbusinessbranding@gmail.com.
@Matt - No I never did Craigslist for business, only eBay. I have recently moved and have found that people were very responsive to my ads for furniture. Have you had success advertising your business on Craigslist?
@kouji - You betcha!
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