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"Ding!" The sweet sound of the door chime rings as a new customer walks through your newly established door. Alas it's only the delivery person bringing in more boxes for your shelves. The process of driving customers to your business, more commonly known as advertising, is a science. Advertising in a unique and low-cost way is an art. Many people aren't able to see past the standard billboard sense of advertising, however there are a plethora of different options that are only limited by your imagination.

Online Social Network Advertising:
One brand new market that has sprung up in recent years are online social networks such as Facebook and Myspace. These present a huge opportunity for small business owners to promote themselves in a completely free manner. A photographer I know has a Facebook account that represents his business. After establishing a friend base he is then able to post sample pictures, offer coupons, and give advise to aspiring photographers. This is a brilliant way to generate interest in your business and it's FREE!

Free Stuff:
People like free stuff. Just like you enjoy free advertising people enjoy getting a product for free. One way to establish good rapport with your community is to throw or attend an event at which you give away your product away for free. It may sound counterintuitive when you are trying to establish cash flow, but building name recognition is much more important when first starting out.

Newsletters:
Newsletters via e-mail are gaining popularity as general use of the Internet becomes more and more commonplace. Again customers are getting something for free, which they like, and you are establishing good rapport as well as reminding them that you are still out there. The great thing about newsletters is that they can actually earn profit for the business. Advertisers are only too happy to pay if the newsletter is distributed to a large amount of people.

A Web Presence:
Building a web presence has become the biggest "have to" in modern business today. Without some sort of web presence businesses are missing out on an extremely large market sector. The great thing about doing this is the ability to have variety as well as being able to generate more income. Again there are a multitude of options when doing this; websites, blogs, e-commerce sites, and directory listings are the most common avenues business owners turn to when attempting to establish themselves.

Moving Advertising:
This is sort of a catch-all category that has been growing as of late. It isn't uncommon to see employees standing on street corners waving and spinning signs advertising a business. Another variation of this is in clothing. There is a large demographic of people that really enjoy wearing free stuff. It doesn't matter whether they like the design or not but rather the price they paid for it. By screen printing and either selling at a loss or giving away t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc. you are creating business recognition for a extensive period of time. Perhaps that person will wear the t-shirt six months down the road someone at the mall will see it and Voila another customer! It's the gift that keeps on giving!

The main point to remember when first starting to advertise is to think outside of the box and to not think the only way to advertise is through a television ad. Add a little flair, be original, make it easy on your wallet and you will have a successful advertising campaign in no time.

Learn more about this author, Austin Hale.
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