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Apr

28

Starting a Snowflake Business: (Part 5) Advertising

Once you’ve got your ideas, materials and your notebook, you’re ready to advertise! Remember that I do not advocate spending much money on your business, especially in the way of advertising. Keep it simple and do it well and your (cheap) advertising will be effective enough to get you jobs. I’ve included templates below to help you along.

There are three main places you can advertise for little or no money, and they’re the best ways to advertise anyway. On we go…

Signs

A Good Example of A Flyer To make a flier, all you need is a plan. You don’t have to do them on the computer - a neat handwritten sign, copied at Kinko’s, will serve the same purpose. But if you can, use the computer and printer. If you’re afraid you’ll use too much ink to print the signs, print one and then make copies at Kinko’s. Simple enough
To make an effective sign, you have to grab the person’s eye and make the sign easy to understand. To the left is an example of a good sign - clean and simple, but attractive and useful too. You can download this template for use in Microsoft Word.

[ Advert Template ]

What you should NOT do: use a tiny or hard-to-read font, or say anything lewd. If you hand-write, the words should be all legible and without too much serif. The sign should be easy to read from a short distance. Here are two examples of what NOT to do
Bad Example - Font and Presentation Bad Example - Size and Enthusiasm

As you can see, on the left the sign is too loud and difficult to read (it looks immature and slapdash). On the right, the sign looks boring and the font is too small. Make sure to keep your signs attractive at all times.

Don’t forget to cut between the info boxes on the bottom so people can rip off your info!

Placing Signs

The best places to put signs are where people will see them for the longest time - usually places where people linger. Having a few papering the walls of a college campus, for example, is a good way to get attention - especially with a strong title line, like “ITALIAN LESSONS,” which draws the eye in. But even if you hang a few all around, be sure to include one or two in a place where people linger - the cafeteria line, the front office, in the gym, etc..

I find the best places the general public lingers are:

the mailbox (hang at a mailbox cluster, stapled to the wooden support beam, or taped to the metal)
the bus stop (tape to the sign pole, or inside the stop’s covered area)
outside of bars and dance clubs (maybe hang three or four poster-style together)
coffee shop sugar/cream/napkin areas (ask permission to hang a sign)
in the lobbies of banks, restaurants, DOL… (ask permission to hang a sign)

But I’m sure you’ll have many of your own ideas as well. Be sure to consider the kind of service you’re offering and the crowd you most want to reach. If hanging on mailbox clusters is the way you want to go, paper every cluster you can find. Go crazy - put your signs up EVERYWHERE. The more exposure you get, the more potential customers you have.

Craigslist

Advertising on Craigslist is one of the best things you can do for your business. Unfortunately, Craigslist is used widely to offer a ton of goods and services, so your ad may get lost in the masses. You need to list on Craigslist every day or two, to keep your listing new and fresh, and near the top of the listings.

Your listing should use proper grammar and spelling. It should also be to-the-point and full of information, but also easy to read and personal - you want to give your ad an honest and real touch.

Example of an attractive ad:

A Practical and Fun Approach to Learning - ITALIAN LESSONS! (Seattle)

Ciao! My name is Shanti and I teach private and group Italian lessons!

I teach Italian like I learned it - a combination of conversation, rehearsal, and memorization. I learned to be conversationally fluent in Italian in six months and then lived in Italy for another six months, attending a full-immersion language school all the while.

The Italian language is beautiful and very fun! I’ll address your specific needs as a new-language learner - working with you to make the most of our time together. I have taught dyslexics and people with other learning disabilities as well, and that experience coupled with my vast understanding of linguistics and the psychological component of language study means that we’ll get a program perfect for you started right away.

All that is required is that you buy a copy of the textbook that we’ll use in lessons (I bought my copy on Amazon for $10). We’ll work with this book and with hundreds of lessons I brought home from the language school I attended in Italy.

I hope you join me! The cost is $30/hour or $50/2 hours - I offer discounted rates for couples and group lessons. We can meet weekly or bi-weekly, however you prefer. I like to meet in coffee shops - a nice atmosphere and a comfortable setting for strangers. Thank you! Email me for details.

To the point without being brief, friendly without being too casual, and interesting but not overwhelming. Of all the ads I’ve put on Craigslist, this one fared the best. Try and work on the tone of your ad. You want people to like you - you want them to want to work with you. And don’t be vague about details - it makes people think you’re flakey or sketchy! You don’t want to be thought of as either of those things.

Make sense, be fun, be interesting, and most of all, make the reader feel special and important. Then you will get replies.

Friends, Family, Coworkers

One of the absolute best ways to get the word out about your business is to tell people! Word of mouth is a fantastic tool for getting business. When you mention your business, be sure to tell others your rates and how best to contact you. Both my parents know the cost of my web design, and that I have no preference between email and phone for communication. I have received so many web design jobs from my parents and coworkers I can’t even begin to thank them.

And all I did was ask that they mention me if the service I offered came up in conversation with anyone. The natural inclination of people is to help one another - especially friends - and so naturally, when someone said they or someone they knew needed a website, my freinds and family offered up me as a suggestion for a great site. It never fails.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask! I haven’t decided what topic to cover next - your questions will show me what you need to learn more of. Any suggestions? Happy Monday!

Filed Under Random Tips, Tricks, and Advice, Small Business, Snowflaking Debt and Savings, money and finance

Comments

2 Responses to “Starting a Snowflake Business: (Part 5) Advertising”

zach @ Pennywise on April 29th, 2008 7:11 pm

wasn’t it you that suggested making bookmarks and asking local coffee shops and book-stores to hand them out? In some strange way, I bet you could go a slightly better route and even put your bookmark in pertinent library materials. . . GOOD GOD!! That’s a GREAT IDEA! You could put a bookmark with your italian ad inside every italian book in the Seattle libraries. For UW alone that’d net you a BUNCH of customers!
shanti on April 29th, 2008 7:15 pm

It was I’m kind of on the fence about that one because it’s a little like spamming - especially without the library’s permission. I can’t ADVOCATE that here be I just don’t want to be liable if someone got in trouble for doing that, but it’s a great idea nonetheless for getting your business out there
I may hit up some of the local libraries this fall if I can decide that it’s ok with me…

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