Advertising is essential to running a small business. We run ads from time to time in a few places. Mostly we print and deliver our own flyers and also run a few ads in local magazines. Cost wise this is fairly expensive but if done right it pays off. Flyers are cheap if you design them yourself. We use instantprint which can be as cheap as £120 for thirty thousand double sided flyers. The real cost is time, but it’s generally worth it. One day delivering them usually gets 5 calls which equates to 3 jobs, plus a lot of people keep them for years.
we also advertise in a local magazine called the net. These are delivered to 30 thousand houses monthly at a cost of £150 a month so you get much more exposure, but unless you’re on the front page, you can only expect about five calls. If you’re on the front you get many more, but that’s £450 so you have a lot more to catch up with. These include a back link on the website which is arguably worth more than the advertising.
And finally the best you can do is look great on Google. Fill out all your profile properly, get listed at every free place imaginable, have active social media profiles, and get reviewed by your customers. That’s the best way to advertise but it’s ongoing and takes months or years to come together properly.
Google Kent Arboreal to see what I mean.
