Advertising Photography in a new area?

[Amy]

I would do a few shoots for the people you DO know (such as coworkers and neighbors) and have them post the pictures on their facebooks and stuff so people can see what you can do and get business off of them.

Places to drop flyers and cards are usually available at coffeshops, grocery stores, libraries, and other community centers.

You would most benefit from having a facebook page for your business that people can "like", that seems to work best with the photographers i know.

[Tim]

I find the absolute best places to advertise are online sites that allow you to target your advertising such as facebook or google.

Google Adsense allows you to place ads on webpages with specific content. For instance if you are doing family portraits, you can set up adsense to run your ads on sites that feature information about parenting in your area.

Google Adwords allows you to customize your ads to appear next to specific search results. In your case, you might want to look at people who search for North Carolina Portrait Photographers, or something to that effect.

Lastly, Facebook, is probably the best way to do very specific advertising targets. You can narrow the demographics by gender, age, location, and by profile keywords. I use this for wedding advertisting. I only advertise to women who are 24-29 years old and engaged. I also target people who use the word "Breckenridge" (my town) in their profiles.