What have you found is the best way of local advertising? Classified ads? Regular ads in the newspaper? Bumper stickers? Posters on telephone poles? Cold calling?

I am trying to figure out what would be most effective before investing too much money in it.

Mark

Cold calling will always be the most "effective" in terms of calls vs responses, however things like bus ads, half-page newspaper ads, etc are often okay as well.

One thing that a lot of people don't consider with local advertising is the local area itself. Personally, I would consider different strategies when advertising in Florida compared to New York or Nevada compared to Los Angeles. Population statistics and trends play a big role.

So... where are you at, Bubba?

Good point. I am in Raleigh, NC, home to a large university and mostly suburban sprawl. I am going to try telephone pole ads around the university area.

Get magnetic signs for your car!

Actually buy a VW Beetle, and drive around with your company logo and message :)

One of my partners suggests that you check out http://www.thewolfweb.com -- it is a local NC State student Web site where you may manage to get a lot of local customers who would be attracted to your prices.

bringing this thread back to the top.

I have a classified ad scheduled to run on Tuesday and Thursday, and have a banner running on the NCSU student site (thewolfweb.com).. any more suggestions?

I posted a flyer on a bulletin board on Stanford campus and got a couple of signups from it...

I posted a thread about a month ago. About local advertising, containing information on alot of methods. Other members jumped in, and added some really awesome additional tips.....


http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54950&highlight=local+advertising

Originally posted by ALTCO
Actually buy a VW Beetle, and drive around with your company logo and message :)

Or static window signs

I got a quote for these, $30 for two 12x12 at a local shop.

Has anyone made flyers and then walked through the neighborhood and put them on doors or visited big parking lots and placed them on cars (e.g. shopping mall, parking lots a big office buildings) - or is that as bad as email SPAM?!

It's all about targeting the right audience offline or online - if you find your group the form of advertising is less important if the campaign is well thought out,...

Originally posted by TheFish
... and placed them on cars ...

That might work if you do it in the parking lot of some computer convension or something, but I doubt you'd get any results in a general parking lot.

Originally posted by ALTCO
Actually buy a VW Beetle, and drive around with your company logo and message :)

Yay! I already have a VW Beetle. Now all I need is a pair of signs and the time to spend driving my car around major cities :D

Simon.

Well we see the VW Shamu (SeaWorld) buggies with the shamu's tail spoiler but we dont see a PC buggy with a KeyBoard Spoiler...

Sorry about that..It wasn't even funny I know!

What about paying people you know to put stickers on their cars?

Boy you come put a sticker on my car... Your sure gonna be gettin calls, but not the ones you where looking for!! ;)

PS- Of course I know he didnt mean "apply" them onto cars..:stickout

what is "cold calling" ?

Originally posted by aragon
what is "cold calling" ?

Cold calling is sales calls offering a product and/or service made directly to potential clients without any prior interaction with the party or a lead developed from a colleague.

Open up your white pages and pick a name & number. Call and offer them a ProgrammingTalk.com Membership. You've just made a cold call.

If you want massive amounts of free publicity, hire a friend to walk naked through campus with your url stenciled on his/her body. Along the lines of the naked car-was that was linked to a while back. Let us know how this pans out. I've always wanted to try some shock marketing, but our community is to small.

Don't know about that Rotifer:o :cartman:

Originally posted by Jeff Rambo


Cold calling is sales calls offering a product and/or service made directly to potential clients without any prior interaction with the party or a lead developed from a colleague.

Open up your white pages and pick a name & number. Call and offer them a ProgrammingTalk.com Membership. You've just made a cold call.

So it's the telephone form of SPAM?

:uzi: :spam:

Hmm... Sort of.

Although I'm not a computer expert, I do the bookkeeping for many small business owners both in Los Angeles/Orange county areas. I can't say much in detail due to professional ethics. But what I can say is that local advertising online seems to be a growing trend--at least among my clients. From what I see, local small business owners are more computer-saavy today, and in turn, are able to do more research to find targeted web sites to advertise in. One in particular here in the Southland, that seems to be gaining popularity (and, a favorite among my clients) is The Socal411 Directory, socal411.com . My clients have explained to me that they love it simply because it's genuinely local, it doesn't have the "clutter" that other "nationwide" online yellow pages have, and it serves the purpose for the price. I'm not an marketing guru, but if something is done by many, it probably works. Hope that helps. ;)

Sasha Centerani
CPA
Mission Viejo, CA

You can also advertise in Church programs. THis is great as you get different people who go to Church. The biggest advise I can give is you MUST know your TARGET AUDIENCE! Once you know this finding a way to target them via advertising should be your next move. Walking in a neighborhood and passing out flyers is great but you may spend allot of money and not gain much from it.

Know your target audience, know where they are, what they like, how to communicate with them and then put an ad together for them. Drive around to local businesses (your target audience) and give them flyers, business cards or even free advice on web hosting.

Someone mentioned this already but it's great; put your flyers or postcards at local businesses that will allow it. In my opinion local advertising is the best way to use your money. When we started 5 years ago we used to do all of the online advertising and it really didn't yield allot. Not to mention it's not cheap. Your competition is always trying to check out your site to find out who you are and what you're doing. If they click on the link would they buy from you????

Lastly, try to be a guest speaker at a local event and pass your business cards around. This is great in establishing yourself and your company as industry leaders or subject matter experts (SME).

There are more but this should help.

Good luck.