How to Advertise your Small Business for $500 per Month.
You better believe it!
The headline isn’t a hook – it can be done! You can absolutely advertise your small business for $500 per month and do it successfully – but – results will vary depending on the type of business you run and they may not come overnight!
Most of our clients invest more than this amount, but I am frequently asked for advice on how to pull this crazy sort of stunt off! The good news – is that I’ve actually done it.
I’m qualified to give a little advice in this department because I’ve done it myself – a lot. I’ve personally executed millions of dollars worth of successful multi-faceted advertising campaigns on behalf of many local businesses small and large. Reduced down to it’s simplest form, this is what we do as a company!
Before we dive in, let’s just lay out a few harsh realities about your $500 that have to be accepted before you shell out your hard earned money.
Your $500 isn’t going to make you filthy rich any time soon.
If advertising were as simple as running the magic formula and quickly turning your $500 into $5,000 and it worked all the time, every time – guess what – everyone in the world would drop what they’re doing, immediately, and start doing that. Maybe some can pull if off, but this is simply not how it works for most businesses.
Don’t get too discouraged! If done right, your $500 can certainly net you a profit in the short term, but ought to be instead looked at as an investment into winning a marathon, not a sprint.
$500 isn’t the Magic Number to spend forever – It’s a solid starting point.
As you grow your business and build your brand along with your customer base, you’ll need to branch out in to varying avenues of advertising and invest more heavily into the ones that make the most sense for your business. It’s minimal, but $500 done correctly can get your small business traction and more importantly – traction in the right direction!
Your $500 may need to be spent differently than the next guy’s $500.
Advertising is not a one size fits all process. There are advertising companies that throw together ‘packages’ and churn-and-burn them out to as many clients as possible. We don’t. We customize everything for several great reasons. Each and every one of the 30.2 million small businesses in the US have a different identity, different target customer, and sell different things off of the shelves. There’s not enough space in this article to write customized prescriptions for that many businesses, but in some form, these ideas will work for most!
If your business isn’t ready for new customers, your $500 won’t do you any good inviting them.
If your website looks terrible, please don’t ask people to come to it for their first impression of you. If your receptionist is mean, don’t ask people to call you. If your office is dilapidated and very difficult to find, don’t ask people to come see you. Basically, understand that advertising is an accelerant. If your business has solid footing and systems in place, it will accelerate your growth upwards. If you are going to give a bad experience to new customers, it will accelerate you out of business! Get your foundation built and THEN advertise.
Without Further Ado…
Whew! Okay, now that the disclaimers are out of the way, let’s get straight to how to start making your advertising work for $500 or less.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – This is the product that makes your small business show up first when people in your area begin searching online for things related to your product. This is a BIG deal for any business. Most businesses can get decent SEO work completed depending on where they’re located. In bigger markets with more competition, your $500 doesn’t go as far. In middle sized or smaller sized markets, you can absolutely get good results – the key is to be smart with your keywords and keep it LOCAL. Any business with any online presence of any sort ought to consider this.
- Guerilla Marketing – That’s right. Good ol’ fashioned flyers can still be a huge ally of small business owners. That’s because the biggest investment is your time. Your $500 ought to go towards the design, printing, and gas costs of delivering flyers to nearby neighborhoods of potential customers near you. Many types of businesses can get this strategy going on their own. Home improvement, landscaping, car repair, tax services – the list is long!
- Social Media Marketing – Advertising intelligently on social media allows you to focus your $500 into ONLY talking to a specific target area you identify as being filled with your customer base. This can be a restaurant targeting nearby neighborhoods, or a commercial roofing company targeting certain industrial parks. This can be a golf course that wants to target Golfers in a nearby communities. There are so many different ways to use Social media for your business. To make your $500 really work, you need to focus on small strategic locations so that you can properly saturate your audience. Your ad itself and your message needs to be creative, distinct, and contain a clear call to action.
- Re-Targeting Advertising – This product focuses your $500 onto asking your existing customers, AND potential customers that have visited your webpage or social media to come and do business with you. Re-targeting allows you to bombard web visitors and social media visitors with ads asking them to come back and buy! Have you ever almost bought something on Amazon but then noticed you see that same product everywhere you go on the internet? That’s Re-targeting, and it works.
- SEM / PPC (Pay-Per-Click) – PPC is a great ally to MANY small business owners. It’s the ability to serve specific ads instantaneously to customers that are actively searching for your product. People that need plumbing help will often time do a search online and call the first person they see at the top. YOU need to be that person and PPC can put you there. You only pay when your ad is clicked.
There are other ways to make it happen, but this is a pretty valuable short-list for small business owners that are scratching their head on how to get started!
Some of you may have read this and want to get going but need help figuring out which approach is best for you, how to construct your message, or even just how to get a great looking website. We passionately do all of the above.
I’d encourage you to give me a call. I’ll leave my personal cell phone number at the bottom of this article. We’re accepting new clients and even if we’re not a good fit for each other right this moment – i’m genuinely happy to help offer some more specific advice. I’ve been doing this for a long time.
If you’re a business owner in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia or anywhere near the Greenville, SC area, and you are interested in investing into marketing your business – I would love to buy you a cup of coffee. Let’s chat!
-Matt Tomlinson, Owner / CEO – The Tomlinson Advertising Agency
(864-421-4471) – Matt@TomlinsonAdAgency.com
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