is there someone out there that can give me a head start?

Question

does anyone know some clever or really useful ideas on how to advertise? any ideas and suggestions are appreciated!

Answer 1

I took a look at your profile. Your translation business seems interesting, but you don't need to be clever... you just need to do the basics.

First, know who your target market is. Your business has two types of customers: the consumer "pull" business and enterprise "push" business.

Your business is expressly focused on the "pull" business, focusing on consumers who want documents translated. These are Pole customers who do not read English at a sufficient level to do it themselves. This demographic slice is rare in English speaking countries, so therefore I am assuming that your key customers are in Poland. This is called a "pull" business because only customers who need the business will need to know that the business service exists and actively searches to find you. You can go mass-market, trying to sell your service to the general public. This needs an awareness campaign in broad reach publications like phone directories and Internet directories. Essentially, you need to be in place where customers are likely to "pull" your name to solve their problem. The downside is that mass market campaigns are expensive.

The less expensive campaign is to be more focused, "pushing" your services to English enterprises. While your readers will be Poles, your customers will typically be MNCs (or aspiring MNCs) that are large enough that they want to penetrate the Polish market, but are either too small to have their own offices in Poland. You can focus your advertising on specific verticals. Key companies would be smaller professional services companies that deal in information. For example, do direct mailings to boutique advertising houses, PR agencies, media companies, lawyers, banks and brokerages. These guys will be some of the biggest consumers of agency-style translation services.