If you want folks to buy your product or use your services, you have to tell them where you are and what you do. That's called advertising and no matter how you do it, you have to do it. Most of you know that I started and ran businesses all my working life, the last one being building and maintaining ornamental garden ponds.
I had friends who also started businesses during their working lives and those businesses failed. Why? They said they did not have enough money to advertise. So nobody knew who they were and the business closed its doors.
I also had no money to advertise, but there are so many alternatives. Back before Twitter, Facebook, Mashable, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram and the multitudes of interactive social media existed, we had to tell people about us in old fashioned ways. But we advertised. Some advertised on TV, but wow, was that expensive. Newspapers were not all that much better.
So how did I tell folks who I was and what I did, especially since building ponds was unheard of unless it was a pond that livestock drank out of. I had to visit nurseries and make them know me, speak to countless garden clubs, hand out business cards, print brochures and beg business places to make a space on their counters for me.
And one can never stop advertising. You don't see McDonalds stopping, or Walmart. If you stop, your customers stop calling, dropping by and buying, no matter how big your business is.
Now we have all of the social media. I don't know if they work for small businesses or not, but I do know that the more people know your name, the more people know your name. And that’s important.
A friend of mine, Pauline Conn is an artist. She sells her magical art on Etsy, specifically PaulineConnArt http://ow.ly/Vqo2E
See, that was a clever way to slip in some advertising. But unless she tells people about her business, not a soul will ever know how talented Pauline is and how to have some of her paintings at their houses.
And now Donna and I write an (almost) daily blog:
How do you suppose we get readers? Check me out on twitter at @pondlady. You may find advertising there. And it’s free.
