What are the best ways to market or advertise my business for free?

[Super]

I just started my antique store and need to get the word out there. How can I get people to see my store apart from spending huge money on advertising and marketing?

[DV88]

Google or Yahoo is a good place to start. But there is a fee involved. What I have success was on a site called dream classified. Their link is http://www.dreamclassified.com

5 star!!!

[Cheryl]

Nothing is free (they at least will cost you time) but you can do a lot to increase your visibility without spending a lot of money.
1. If you don't have a website, get one. You can build your own for very little money and some time and education.
2. Build your SEO. Quick way to do that is to use key words (having to do with antiques and your city/area) and getting back links to your website.
3. Social media - develop facebook and twitter accounts. Get involved with OTHERS and slowly they will want to hear more about you.
4. Craigslist.
5. F2F networking - go to local groups and organizations and get involved. Where are your customers? I'm thinking you could find several area groups to get involved with.
6. Give it away. Offer something affordable as a prize on FB, a local charity function or as a prize for someone else's contest who is spending the money to get the word out.

Hope some of this helps!

[Jake]

Having a free Google Places Page may be important, it's on of the easiest way to be found online in your community they are favored by Google over regular company web sites. (There's a Google counterpart as well)

Try a Google search for: antiques, your city

The results with A-G lettered stick pins are places pages, most are setup to access a company site when clicked but not all, not the immediate info rolling over the >> symbol reveals.

You could place an ad for a different item daily in free classified ads sites, in the U.S. craigslist.org is the most popular, I believe they are in some other countries as well.

Find some community activities you could participate in, perhaps genuine free appraisals for the financially troubled.

Some would question if a real business would have no advertising budget.

[Alyssa]

Hello!

If you are willing to shell out a bit of money for your advertising needs, I suggest you try an SEO and internet marketing company. They can help you with your small business. If you do not have any budget for that at all you can try doing promotions on local sites, maybe create a page in facebook and invite people in your area who have the same interests in antiques. Nowadays, it's not that difficult to reach out to your market as long as you have the internet by your side. It's up to you on how to think of creative ways to get their attention. If you do the old traditional way of advertising using print ads or flyers, well that could get much more costly. If you really don't have the knack of doing advertising, a small business consultant would be very helpful.

Good luck!
Alyssa

[Gik Media]

Hi

There are some free websites where you can advertise like Qype, Freeindex, and Hotfrog and a few others.

Further options would be create a twitter account and search for people who are talking about antiques and follow them hopefully they will follow back.

Also use Facebook Google+ and build a following by talking about antiques etc.


Also read some further tips below

[Kyle Lawrence]

Create a mobile application for your business. Very effective and new way to market business.