Budget ways to promote a local business – simple and effective tips

A few years back I ran a successful baby signing business and the client group I was trying to attract  were local parents. There were many baby activity groups around at the time and competition was rather fierce. Promoting my business was key to securing enough attendees at classes.

I didn’t have much budget to advertise so I had to find inexpensive  ways to promote my business. This was a challenge  but was quite a lot of fun too. Here is how I did it….

1. I took out an ad in our local free paper which was free in exchange for some editorial, I wrote about pregnancy fitness and healthy eating whilst pregnant and they gave me free advertising. Perfect. This advert was also placed online so was searchable and the paper was delivered throughout my neighbourhood to everyone.

2.   I asked my health visitor if it was possible for me to offer brief baby signing sessions to new mums. I made these lots of fun and as a result of my free little sessions lots of parents signed up for the courses. This was giving away my time for free but was most definitely worth it.

3. I had business cards made. I got 100 free from a website when my husband ordered some work stationary and I gave them away whenever the opportunity arose. Seriously, if someone even mentioned a pregnant friend the cards were whipped out!

4. I had a roller banner stand that I would take with me to my free sessions and to any talks I gave and this would have the baby signing logo and my contact number displayed on it boldly so whilst I was chatting or demonstrating it would be clearly visible. For only a small investment this is a great way to share your details whilst you focus on relationship building.

5. I used Facebook and local groups to spread my business message and to present myself as fun and appealing person to come to classes with. Again a free and very useful resource that I could update as required.

So you see promoting my local business did not cost much, it just required energy, effort and engagement and a few inexpensive resources. And did it work? Yes, I always had a waiting list.

I hoep you have found this post budget ways to promote a local business to be useful. You might also like my post on tips for starting a successful  small business

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