Marketing and Advertising for Small Business?

Question

Hi there, we don't have a huge budget, but need to get our name out. We are a small independent custom made jeweller, and need to get new customers! Any help would be so appreciated.

Answer 1

A few free resources – check out the sources box for links:

1) Create a blog pertaining to your field

2) Use Yahoo! Local & Yahoo! Groups – Be sure to read the TOS for each one!

3) Write articles pertaining to your field and/or expertise.

4) Advertise on Craiglist

Also, consider signing up for an affiliate program. These programs enable you to advertise on other's sites (your affiliates) and once a sale is made to you, your affiliates & the program are paid a commission.

I listed a few handy sites & articles relating to marketing, promotion & advertising. Here are some book titles that are relevant:

* 301 Do-It-Yourself Marketing Ideas: From America's Most Innovative Small Companies by Sam Decker
* Off The Wall Marketing Ideas: Jumpstart Your Sales without Busting Your Budget by Nancy Michaels, Debbi J. Karpowicz
* Guerrilla Marketing for Free: Dozens of No-Cost Tactics to Promote Your Business and Energize Your Profits by Jay Conrad Levinson
* Entrepreneur Magazine's Ultimate Small Business Marketing Guide: Over 1500 Great Marketing Tricks That Will Drive Your Business Through the Roof by James Stephenson

Hope that helps! I wish you much success & happiness in all your ventures!

Answer 2

If you are e-commerce enabled, you might have a lot of luck using the Google AdWords program or Yahoo Sponsored Search.
If you only have a physical location, but you are looking to bring in foot traffic, you may consider using Yahoo Local Sponsored Search.
All three programs involve bidding on keywords to trigger your ad to appear with search results. In case you arent aware of these ads, they are the 4-line text ads on the right hand side of the search results page.
Each of these programs allows you to control your costs as well as determine what terms you do and (more importantly) do not show up for. Also, you pay each time an ad is clicked as opposed to when it is shown.

Read the materials carefully for each program and decide which works best for you. See Links below.

Answer 3

Go to trade shows to get retail accounts.

Go to country fairs, flea markets, famer's markets to sell retail.

Set up a website and use Google Adwords and Yahoo search marketing.

Start an ebay store (it'll be hard, the markets there are crowded)

Auction stuff on Yahoo.

Answer 4

Here are some suggestions.
1.Use your email signature file to promote your business.
2.Lend some of your jewelry to family and friends to wear. Someone seeing your products may want to order
3.Buy and inexpensive car magnet for your car. Let your car advertise your business while you are driving it or it is parked in a parking lot.
4. Leave some of your jewelry in consignment shops.
5. Check with the local high schools or other organizations who are doing fashion shows. Let them borrow your jewelry for the fashion show.
6. Attach yourself with a few people who custom make clothing. Have them feature your jewelry with their clothes for that "complete look".

Answer 5

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Answer 6

Try social media. It's very effective and affordable. Try websites that are proficient in promoting small business. One such site; www.40Billion.com have been promoting small businesses very effectively for a very small fees for more than five years. They have great resources too.

Answer 7

Get your jewelry website ranked number one on Google and Yahoo in their search results. That would get a lot of visitors.

The best way to do that is build inbound links to your website.
Most of the directories online charge a one time fee to review your site and add it to their index. Here are three of my favorites:
http://www.kahmer.com
http://botw.org/?uid=20578
http://www.avivadirectory.com/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=kahmer
The more inbound links to your site, the better you will rank with Yahoo / Google / MSN.

Also work on your meta tags. Here is an
article on how they work: http://www.richkahmer.com/meta-tags.html