50 Ways To Promote Your Business

Further to a Facebook conversation last week, it was asked of me how many ways there are to promote your business to the masses.

Well, quite a few is the short answer!   The long answer is below, however this isn’t a comprehensive list and you might be able to think of some I’ve missed.  If you can then feel free to add them in the comments below!

The point of this is two-fold, really.  Firstly it demonstrates how many ways there are to get your name out there.  There are far more than you might think!

What About You?

How many are you doing in your business?

One?  Two?  Ten?

Of course you can’t do all of them.

But what you can do is start trying some new ones to see if they work for your business.  Start on a small, manageable and affordable basis and add one new method each month.

If it works then you keep on doing it.   If it doesn’t then you’ve learnt something, you stop, and you try something else.

Keep doing that for a year and then you’ll have yourself a powerful marketing machine working for you!

Keeping Track Of Everything

It’s always important too to measure your results.   You must promote in such a way that you can work out whether the advertising has worked for you or not.

If you put a billboard poster up in your town and the telephone number you encourage people to call is the same as your normal number how are you going to know it is has worked or not?

You must either set up different numbers, send them to different pages on your website or get people to quote certain codes when enquiring – just make sure they are all different!

So here we go, some ideas for you – in no particular order – which will you implement first?!

1. Email marketing
2. Your website
3. Discount codes
4. Affiliate marketing schemes (other people selling your services for you)
5. Search engine optimisation (SEO)
6. Blogging on your own blog (read more about that here)
7. Guest blogging for others
8. Posters
9. Flyers
10. Radio
11. Upselling (read more about that here)
12. Television
13. Newspaper and magazine editorials
14. Newspaper and magazine advertisements
15. Banner adverts (clickable links on the websites of other people)
16. YouTube
17. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and other social media
18. Paid advertising on social media
19. Create a LinkedIn account
20. Billboards
21. Exhibitions and conferences
22. Networking events
23. Remarketing on Facebook and Google (showing adverts to those who have visited your page already)
24. Word of mouth
25. Referral schemes
26. Loyalty programmes
27. Ebay, Gumtree and other websites
28. Business cards
29. Joint ventures (working with other local businesses in some way)
30. Sponsorship of a community or charity event
31. Wrap or advertising for your car
32. A-board outside your premises
33. Branded clothing (read more about that here)
34. Direct mail
35. Pick up the telephone and call previous customers
36. Pay per click advertising (such as Google Adwords)
37. Online directories
38. Contribute to local forums
39. SMS texts
40. Press releases
41. Podcasting
42. Sign up to Google Places (to improve your visibility in local searches)
43. Do an open evening or VIP event
44. Run a competition
45. Noticeboard adverts in local businesses (supermarkets and Post Offices are good places to start)
46. Enter awards ceremonies
47. Write a book
48. Customer surveys (you can read more about those here)
49. Mobile apps
50. Speak at an event

Phew!  So there are 50 ways to promote your business.

How many do you do currently?