What is the best way to advertise a small business?

[Nick]

I have a small graphic design firm. I have a very small amount of capital for marketing. What would be my most efficient form of adverts?

[SUgaRY]

I would suggest Internet advertising.. only 15% of americans are using the phonebook.. and thats compared to the 75% of americans using online search engines to find businesses.. May i suggest trying out E LOCAL LISTING it is a company that i currently work for and we can put your internet business card on the front pages of the most powerful search engines in the world.. which happens to be GOOGLE and YAHOO.. give me a call and we can talk business (951) 541-0380 ext 7070 ask for kristina

[signchiq]

Local networking groups are a great way to market your services and for a little amount of money or sometimes free! Check out http://www.bni.com for a local chapter of BNI (fee based). This is a great way to build relationships with other local businesses and get referrals.

You can also try http://www.etsy.com - it's for handmade/homemade items, but people are selling their design services to other etsy store owners for web graphics, business cards, postcards, etc.

Try connecting with local businesses that require design services but do not have them in-house - ad agencies and print houses are sometimes good places to start. Send them a "gift basket" with a notepad and pen and maybe some candy - people won't throw that stuff out!

Sign up on MerchantCircle.com, LinkedIn.com and Facebook - advertising your shop.

Another great idea is vehicle magnets or direct vinyl lettering - it really does work! If you're driving around town you might as well get paid to do it - and what a great way to show off your design skills!

Best results - Word Of Mouth. Get your past clients to write testimonials and use them on your marketing materials and website. Make sure you send all past clients thank you notes - on the bottom of the note you can let them know you are "never too busy for their referrals".

Here's a fun idea - I used to get pens made and then when I went to restaurants and pay w/ a credit card - I would switch out my pen for the waitresses pen (of course not if it was a nice pen - don't want to be that tacky!!!). That pen will makes it's way around.

If you have a storefront or office space - have an open house and invite potential clients over for snacks and to see what you have to offer.

What I've found is word of mouth and referrals for a service type business is truly the key - no amount of money spent on an ad will equal a good solid referral.

[Janeth D]

1) Myspace.com

2) Yahoo Groups

3) Stumbleupon.com

4) Forums

5) Craigslist.org

6) Site maps

7) E-Book Giveaway

8) Submit To Directories

9) Tell a Friend

10) Search Engine Optimization

11) Squidoo.com

12) Social bookmarking sites

13) Article Promotion

14) Site Explorer

15) Epinion.com

16) Alexa.com

17) Newsletter Box

18) Scribd

19) Get Links from Relevant Websites

20) Increase the Size of Your Site

21) Send out Press Releases

22) Advertise On Online classified Ad Sites

23) Use Firefox Plug-in

24) Add a Forum to Your Site

25) Add a Blog to Your Site

26) Optimize Your Blog for The Search Engines

27) Comment on Other Peoples Blogs

28) MySpace News

30) Digg

31) Banner Exchanges

32) Traffic Exchanges

33) Pop Unders

34) Technorati and ping it when your blog content changes

35) Use a ping service like pingomatic to ping RSS aggregators

36) Submit your blog to all of the RSS directories

37) Link to other blogs in your posts

38) Use Stumbleupon to stumble your posts.

39) Ask your readers to submit your posts to social bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit, etc.)

40) Start a group blog.

41) Join SpicyPage and promote your blog

42) Join a webring.

43) Sign up for BlogWoods and promote your blog

44) Exchange Ads (not blogroll links) with complementary blogs.

45) Trade blog roll links with related blogs.

46) Use Twitter

47) Publish videos on YouTube

48) Search for Wikis related to your.

49) Join Hub pages and post links to your blog from articles you write.

50) Pray.