Getting a small Business off the ground takes courage and perseverance. It takes a well-organized operational backbone—timely invoicing to get paid, managing your own business bills, and smart reporting to bring it all together.

It also takes stamina: once you launch your business, you’ll need to both attract and keep customers buying from you.

Think of it like training to become a detective or spy. Your mission—should you choose to accept it—is to seek out the right people who’ll be interested in purchasing your product or service.

And, you’ll have to present them with the right message at just the right time in their buying journey.

Those ideal customers will want to know why your business is the best choice for them and how you’ll make it worth parting with their hard-earned money.

Your job is to persuade them and capture as many of them in your sales funnel as possible.

Definitions: What is small business advertising?

The terms Advertising and marketing can often be mistaken for one another. So before you create your campaign—or hire expert help—it’s important to know the differences.

Advertising definition

Advertising is developing and paying for the placement of persuasive messages to motivate customers to buy your product or service. Direct response advertising …

• Drives immediate action
• Contains powerful calls-to-action
• And promotes a specific and timely offer

When placing a direct-response ad, your goal is to generate a high return on investment (ROI). You measure ROI by taking the amount of money you spent on a specific advertising message or campaign and divide it by the number of sales it generates.

Traditionally, advertising was categorized into five channels: direct mail, outdoor (e.g., billboards and transit ads), print, radio, and television.

Since the explosion of new internet technologies, other opportunities like display ads on websites, search, mobile advertising, and social media platforms have splintered advertising avenues into many new directions.

Advertising versus marketing

In contrast, marketing governs the overall strategy to raise awareness, generate demand, or drive sales. The strategy is tailored to each of your target audiences and integrated with other communications tactics, like PR.

Marketing is often divided into five Ps:

1. Product
2. Price
3. Promotion
4. Place
5. People

Branding campaigns, for instance, help you raise awareness, so customers (people) remember your name and what your business stands for. The goal is to generate an emotional response and customer affinity.

The work of finding the right channels and opportunities must be dictated by your audiences’ buying patterns and behaviors. That’s why tracking and analyzing customer data, like market research and customer analytics, is now an essential skill.

In addition, marketing nurtures the customer relationship after advertising has converted a sale. The goal is to make each customer feel like they are a valuable member of your brand family.

After all, you can’t stay in business without a loyal customer base.

Promotions and advertising

Another term that often gets confused with advertising is promotions. While both are used to convince your target customer to buy something, promotional tactics are often used to help you close a deal once you’ve got a customer’s attention.

For example, special deals on your website or in-store are used to get customers to spend more or make the final decision to buy now.

Customers love getting a good deal, and common promotional tactics offer deals such as:

• Free products
• Free samples
• Special pricing
• Financing deals
• Free shipping

Like direct-response advertising, promotions call people to action. However, with promotions, the action is usually customer-focused: “Take advantage of this deal so we can help you solve your problem.”

While the strategies work symbiotically, it’s critical to understand where each one is better suited.

Creating a small business advertising strategy

Before you begin advertising, you must identify your target customers by narrowing down their interests, needs, and goals. Research and outline your audience’s demographics (e.g., age, gender, household income) as well.

The more targeted your campaign is, the less likely you will be to waste money on non-effective ad buys.

The same is true for the channels you advertising on: start with two or three of the below types and expand to new channels as your business grows.

If you want to target local areas, consider publications and channels that cater to customers by specific geographic regions—or, even postal codes—and see what advertising options are available.

Regardless of the platform, identify exactly what action you want the customer to take and how you’ll measure it.

Determine your ideal end-result (goal). It could be to increase sales by 10%. Or, generate 200 new sales leads in three months. Then, tailor your campaign from there.

Remember, your advertising costs include more than what you pay to buy media.

It should cover the fees to come up with a concept, write the copy, design for the specified formats you choose, and purchase imagery or photography that you might want to include in your ad.

We’ll dive deeper into costs and budgeting once we’ve covered different ways you can advertise your small business.

Common advertising ideas for small businesses

Let’s say you run a home renovation business. We’ll also assume you or your advertising department have already done the work of identifying your target audience.

You know you must reach professional men and women between the ages of 35 to 55 with a high disposable income. These customers live in an urban setting and own either their first or second home and at least one car to commute to work.

You decide to develop two campaigns:

• To raise awareness about your business in target pockets of your city
• Advertise a limited-time offer for customers to receive a 10% off discount after they request a free home renovation quote

Let’s get into some of the common small business advertising tactics you can choose from.

While there are many different types of advertising opportunities, I’ve outlined those that are affordable and applicable to most small businesses.

Types of small business advertising

Given the length and detail of this article, we’ve created a simplified cheat sheet (PDF) of the definitions along with all 20 of the different ad types grouped into four categories:

Grab the Small business advertising cheat sheet (PDF) here

Digital and online advertising

From search to social, mobile, and display ad networks, online advertising represents a broad range of opportunities to reach and convert new customers.

“Small businesses advertise on a variety of mediums, but social media (64%) and online (49%) are the most popular,” says Kristen Herold of The Manifest.

Online ads enable small businesses to target the ideal audience who are most likely to buy your products or services. Let’s get into some of the most common options next.

1. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising

PPC ads let marketers pay for an ad online when a customer clicks on it. This form of advertising is preferable to small businesses running direct-response campaigns, as it’s perceived as easier to measure ROI from this strategy. It’s often more affordable, too, as it stretches your budget further.

What you pay per click really depends on the keywords or audience categories you’re bidding on. The more popular the keyword or audience, the higher the price. So, when you’re just getting started, it’s best to go for those that are a little less popular.

I’m going to focus on PPC for the purpose of this post, but some of the channels I’ll mention below offer branding-focused CPM options as well.

2. Google Ads

Google Ads which create ads that appear on Google when web users search for certain words or phrases, known as keywords. You pay only when a user clicks on your ads. So you can set your desired budget for reaching new customers, and your ads run until that budget runs out.

Google Ads allows you to bid on keywords to place text ads on search engine result pages (SERPS) but also offers image-based ads via Google’s display ad network.

It’s an effective advertising channel because text ads are clicked on more than image or video ads. The same article cited that 63% of people say they’d click on a search ad in 2019.

Both of these options are available on partner publishers (think major media and blogs) websites. These sites have opted-in to have their ad spots sold on Google AdSense—an external ad network where publishers can benefit from affiliate earnings from Google-managed ads running on their sites.

Google AdWords is a very robust platform. However, if you want to make small changes, Google AdWords Express has an app where you can view and tweak campaigns on the fly. You can set up simplified campaigns if you don’t have the time or background to spend a lot of time doing PPC advertising.

To learn about everything Google has to offer, consider getting certified as a Google Ads specialist. Or, find a freelancer or employee who is certified to help you out.

3. YouTube

YouTube is the second-largest search engine behind Google, and one billion users spend 40 minutes a day on the video platform.

If you have the resources to create video content or ads, you can target customers via keywords and have your video ad appear based on your target audiences’ interests, specific video topics, demographic groups, and more.

Pre-roll

The most common types of video ads on YouTube run before one of the partner videos (e.g., other video creators who’ve opted-in to the YouTube ad network). These are called pre-rolls ads and come in skippable and non-skippable formats.

Semi-transparent overlay

Semi-transparent overlay ads, which are display or text ads that appear over the bottom portion of a video, are another option. However, advertisers must now include those as part of a reserved CPM sponsorship ad buy.

TrueView video discovery

TrueView discovery ads are another good PPC option if you do create YouTube video ads. These ads show up next to videos on YouTube search result pages. Like the other basic ads I’ve mentioned, you just need a small thumbnail of your video, plus some text to create the ad.

Remarketing is an additional targeting option with YouTube ads and many of the other social platforms I’ve mentioned in this post. It involves placing ads in front of audiences who’ve already interacted with your website or mobile app.

The YouTube ads platform breaks down all the different formats and pricing options. Also, check out the YouTube advertising playbook which can help you get started.

4. Banner and display ads

Banner or display ads are one of the most common forms of online advertising. They’re usually static or rotate a message that helps to either raise awareness of a new product or brand or drive immediate sales.

They can run on most traditional media websites and can be created for and bought on social media websites and blogs. Often, they’re bought based on a set number of impressions—or, cost-per-thousand basis (or CPM). An impression is counted every time someone sees your display ad.

You can also buy them based on a PPC, where you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. You can either set that cost-per-click based on an agreement with the website or bid on specific keywords to pay a certain price.

Like all other forms of advertising, you want to find websites and ad placements that are highly targeted to your customers. The more targeted your banner or display ad buys, the better it will likely perform.

Additionally, you can buy display ads on an ad network, like the Google Display Network. This approach will help you to spread your message across a variety of targeted sites all at once, rather than having to buy placements on each site individually. You can tell the network which audience you’d like to reach, and often get placements at a lower CPM by purchasing ads this way.

5. Affiliate advertising

Affiliates are websites that opt-in to promote your product on their site, and you only pay them when someone clicks on a link to your site. Or, you might pay them a percentage of the sale you make through that link. It works a lot like PPC advertising.

Like ad networks, you can seek out an affiliate network to help you spread your message across the web. Bloggers and content producers are often members of affiliate networks because they can make passive income by including a link to your product in their stories.

They basically act like middlemen between you and your product or service. This is a pretty cost-effective way to drive additional sales or leads for your business.

Social media advertising

Paid social media PPC ads are seen by a captive audience of registered platform users. According to The Manifest, “Facebook (86%) is the most popular social media channel that small businesses use to advertise, followed by YouTube (51%), Instagram (47%), and Twitter (41%).”

Here’s a brief snapshot of the highest-profile social networks …

6. Facebook

Counting 2.38 billion active monthly users (as of the first quarter of 2019), Facebook’s advertising platform sells sidebar and newsfeed ads as well as promoted posts.

Blueprint, Facebook’s certification program, helps customers learn about using their Ads Manager and the different ways to target audiences.

You can target customers by demographics (e.g., age and geography) and then dive deeper into audience categories, like “Homeownership.”

Some of the different ad formats you can choose from include banner ads, carousel ads, video ads, and slideshow ads.

Here’s an example of a carousel ad that lets you tell a story with up to ten images. It works well for home renovation or contractor businesses, as you get to show-off your recent work:

Another good and simple approach to Facebook advertising is the single image ad, which only requires one image and some text. It’s an affordable option when you’re just getting started.

If you want to know more about all of the Facebook advertising options, check out their guide online.

7. LinkedIn

If you’re targeting other businesses, rather than consumers, you might want to advertise on LinkedIn. As of today, LinkedIn has over 645 million monthly users worldwide who use the site to:

• Network with their colleagues
• Create and share industry-related content
• Find employment or freelance opportunities

In addition to creating a free LinkedIn business page to let the world know who you are and promote business-targeted content, you can buy both display and text-based ads through LinkedIn Marketing Solutions.

Your ads can appear as sponsored content, similar to other social networks, or as text or display ads to the right of a user’s news feed.

Buying a sponsored content, or native ad involves creating a business page, then promoting content you’ve created and posted on LinkedIn to drive people back to that page. These ads, as well as text ads, can be highly targeted to specific business niches or user profiles (e.g., CEOs, CFOs, or CMOs). They can be bought on a CPM or PPC basis.

You can also purchase Sponsored “InMail” which sends a targeted email message to a group of targeted users. These ads are bought based on a set price and targeted email list. Learn more about LinkedIn Marketing Solutions on their website.

8. Instagram

Instagram is owned by Facebook and has about one billion monthly active users. You can run Instagram campaigns straight from the Facebook Ads Manager tool.

There are many different ways to advertise on Instagram, including Story ads, photo ads, video ads, carousel ads, and collections ads. The targeting is similar to Facebook as it’s booked through the same platform.

If you are budget-conscious, the single image ad, like the one for Facebook, is probably your best bet as it won’t cost as much for design. Here’s a link to the Instagram advertising guide for more details on their ad formats.

9. Pinterest

With 291 million monthly active users, small businesses can target customers based on interests and aspirational imagery. For example, a home renovation business could target Pinterest users who are pinning images of home decor and architectural designs.

There are many different ways to target people’s pins, including promoted pins in the app and on the site, promoted video pins, and buyable pins (which let customers click to buy something immediately via a pin).

Promoted pins are probably the best place to start as a small business. Similar to Instagram and Twitter, you only need one image and some text to create the ad.

To advertise, create a business account and follow the steps outlined in our Guide to Pinterest post.

10. Twitter

Twitter has about 275 million monthly active users (as of 2019). It allows businesses to run several different campaigns, including promoting your account to get more followers, sharing promoted tweets to get more engagement (retweets, replies, and favorites), and promoting hashtags.

You can drive traffic to specific links and pages, too. You’ll probably want to get started with promoted Tweets as that is a pretty straightforward option and shows up in your target customers’ Twitter Feed.

Here’s a helpful guide on how to get started with Twitter advertising.

Print advertising and out of home (OOH)

11. Direct mail

This channel is perfect for sending specific, targeted messages directly to customers’ homes in key demographic areas. You can use it either for direct response or brand awareness, depending on your overall budget.

The average cost ranges from $1 to $10 per piece of mail sent to every contact. It’s because you must factor in the budgets for copywriting, designing, printing, mailing list development, and postage.

The more targeted and niche you can be, the better. You can keep costs down as well by considering the quality and length of the content you are creating. It’s best to keep it simple to start.

For example, instead of sending out a ten-page glossy brochure, you can send a one-page 8.5×11 letter or a postcard to introduce your business to prospects, or promote the 10% off discount.

If your campaign goal is to build brand awareness, the postcard example below is a great way to pique consumer interest and provide them with your brand name and phone number to keep handy.

As your budget grows, so too can your investment in design, printing, and copy. Many small business owners start out doing it by themselves. If you choose to go this route, at the very least, consider hiring a copywriter or proofreader.

There are also third-party businesses that can help you create a DIY postcard using a templated design.

You can cut back on costs by only sending direct mail out to your most valuable prospects. Segment and narrow down your mailing list by potential customers or postal codes with the highest household income.

Your national postal service can often sell this data to you for a fee if you don’t already have a database.

Another affordable way to sent direct-response deals to a customer’s mailbox is through direct coupon services, like Valpak.

12. Coupon mailing services

Coupons are still in high demand because, well, who doesn’t like to save money? And shows like Extreme Couponing have turned the act of collecting and redeeming them into a competitive sport.

Valpak is a full-service direct marketing company which now reaches millions of demographically targeted, US and Canadian homeowners with discounts and deals from local and national brands. They have some direct competitors like MSpark, but they are the most well-known.

There are other similar services around the world. However, I’ll use Valpak as an example of a direct coupon services advertising stream for the purposes of this post.

Valpak’s direct coupons are distributed to your customers’ mailboxes via the company’s well-known and trusted blue envelope or through a customers’ mobile device.

Advertising with them helps drive foot traffic to your business location. It can also help you increase visitors to your website and target seniors who may not go online.

Valpak can keep costs down for all businesses because it’s a shared-mail concept. All businesses in the mailer can collectively present their businesses to selected Neighborhood Trade Areas (NTAs) through promo codes, coupon codes, printable coupons, circulars, inserts, or envelope cover advertising.

Valpak offers a wide variety of different ways to maximize your dollars spent. So be sure to identify your budget and stick to it.

Some things that can impact your direct coupon budget include:

• The need for graphic design services
• Printing, production and mail preparation
• The type of direct mail you want to send
• Your target household reach (e.g., 10,000 households is lower than 50,000)
• You campaign timeframe (e.g., mailing every week for six weeks versus for three months)

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How digital Valpak works

Valpak offers digital coupon solutions to mobile users who don’t want to receive print-based clippings. Valpak digital offers receive millions of monthly views, which can increase the reach of your offer and drive more visitors to your site. If you already advertise with Valpak’s direct mail service, mobile app advertising is included for free.

Valpak provides a location-based mobile app that allows Apple and Google Play users to input their zip or postal code to receive local coupons. Then businesses can simply look at a customer’s phone screen to grant them discounts at the register.

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Now that we’ve covered ways to build brand awareness and derive direct-response sales revenue through the mail, let’s turn to newer online media channels.

13. Billboards and OOH

Billboards and out-of-home (OOH) are ads your customers will see when they’re commuting to and from work or on a road trip somewhere.

They’re effective because:

• You can build awareness quickly if you place six to ten billboards close together along a customer’s route
• They’re hard to miss and can offer driving directions to get someone into your restaurant or store quickly
• They can be targeted to specific geographic regions where your customers are most likely to see them in their cars or on foot in an urban setting
• You can buy them in a variety of sizes to suit your budget

According to Small Business Chronicles, billboards can range in size by 5 feet, 11 inches to 14 by 18 feet. Another option is to buy an electronic billboard ad placement, which can rotate or scroll your message, rather than having just a static image and text.

Because of their size, billboards can get a little pricey—ranging from $1,000 to $3,000 for just one billboard. Since you need to buy more than one to ensure customers recall your message, you could end up spending somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000 per month.

You’ll want to be very strategic about when to use them and consider only using them in short bursts, say, to launch a new product.

14. Transit and car advertising

While buying a billboard can cost you thousands of dollars per sign, transit advertising is an affordable way to raise brand awareness in targeted geographies and bus routes.

Benefits of transit ads include:

• People can’t ignore it, turn them off, or skip them like you can online or with TV
• Drivers and passengers are exposed to it while stuck in traffic
• Using big, bold, colorful, designs will attract attention
• You can reach a targeted, local audience by selecting specific bus shelters or routes that are relevant to your campaign objectives
• You can choose between different ad sizes and locations based on your budget

Some of the most common types of transit ads are:

• “King-sized” and “queen-sized” signs placed on the sides of transit vehicles; these are the largest (most expensive) options
• “Tail signs” which are located on the backs of buses (frequently used by SMEs)
• Interior cards are smaller and are seen only by the riders; lining the tops of the bus or subway windows
• Bus shelter or bench ads are bigger (and cost more) but can be very specifically targeted to your desired neighborhoods

This type of advertising lends itself better to brand awareness as a way to be top of mind with customers on their daily commute.

Perhaps when they do get home, they might find a direct-response flyer or postcard with a coupon code sitting in their mailbox? And when they go online, they might see some targeted home renovation ads on Facebook or Instagram.

The more you can integrate various channels and strategies, the better as it exposes customers to your brand or direct-response message through multiple touchpoints.

General rates according to Blueline media

Finally, let’s review a few other ways to target customers through traditional local advertising channels.

Local advertising

Since many small businesses target local markets, it makes a lot of business and financial sense to include local advertising media in your overall strategy. The two most common options here include:

15. Newspaper ads

Even though circulation numbers have dwindled, newspaper ads can be hyper-targeted, just like direct mail. And if you’re targeting, say, baby boomers with a high disposable income, then newspapers still make a lot of strategic sense.

A few benefits of newspaper ads include:

• They’re targeted: You can select local papers based on where their readers are centralized, and choose from sections of the paper that cater to your audience (e.g., home or lifestyle)
• People read slowly: So they’re more likely to be exposed to your ad for a long time (and they can’t scroll away from it as they would online)
• You can use clippable coupons: To measure the impact of the ad

Depending on your budget, you can either buy local newspaper print ads or purchase smaller classified ads.

Image via Sherwood Park News

Local newspaper ads are often priced by column inches and whether or not you advertise in color, or black and white. Or, you pay by the fraction of the page your ad will take-up (e.g., ¼ page or ½ page).

Since national newspaper ads can be costly, I suggest staying focused on community newspapers for more affordable rates. For example, a 4 by 10-inch black and white ad might cost you $480 for a local newspaper, but up to $10,000 for a national newspaper, according to Fits Small Business.

16. Classifieds

Don’t forget about online classifieds, either. Many local papers offer free or cheap classified ads on their websites.

Kijii and Craigslist sell ads to businesses seeking a targeted audience. And since many new home buyers look on those sites for furniture or home decor, it’s a perfect advertising channel for (in keeping with our running example) a home reno or home improvement business.

17. Radio stations

Since you don’t have to design anything for a radio ad, all you need is a good copywriter with radio advertising experience. The local radio station of your choice can also provide you with parameters on what you need for, say, a ten-second radio spot.

According to the Small Business Administration, Radio ads are useful because:

• It’s affordable: They’re less expensive than cable television advertising but often has the same reach, meaning …
• You can run multiple ads, getting better results, because repetition is important to radio advertising
• It’s quick and easy to make: If you use the services of the radio station to produce your ad, so you can purchase radio ads and get them on the air within days
• Businesses can narrowly target listeners: Radio stations constantly review their listener profiles to see which demographic groups listen to specific shows, personalities and times of day

Radio ads are bought on a CPM basis because they’re more awareness-based. The price is determined by the size of the radio show’s audience.

If the show is hyper-local and targeted, you can expect to pay anywhere from $200 to $5,000 per week, depending on the reach of the audience you’re targeting. Plus, you need to factor in creating the ad which can range from a couple of hundred dollars to $1,000.

If you have a smaller budget, consider running local radio ads for just a short time period as a way to raise awareness, say, at the beginning of the home renovation rush in the spring and early fall.

You might even combine it with a short burst of local print media or outdoor transit advertising. Then, follow-up with some direct-response campaigns both online and offline with direct mail or coupons.

18. Google My Business

It’s important to have a local presence on Google, even if you don’t plan to buy paid search ads. You can create a free profile using Google My Business, which enables you to show up in Google search results and on Google Maps.

That’s important because the “majority of consumers search for a local business online on a regular basis with 69% of people searching at least one time per month in 2018.”

Above all, encourage happy customers to write reviews for your business on Google.

In fact, 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they would a personal recommendation. While you’re at it, consider doing the same on Facebook and Yelp.

19. Facebook and Yelp reviews

While Google is the fastest-growing local reviews website right now, Facebook and Yelp are still growing and are vital places to generate reviews online.

Keep in mind, though, that Yelp now has a “don’t ask policy” that discourages businesses from generating too many fake reviews. As a rule, it’s best not to incentivize customers to write reviews, as you may not get an authentic response (i.e., they just want the free gift card or cookie you’re giving away).

Additionally, you can advertise your business on Yelp.

However, the cost per acquisition can be a little pricey. As with all platforms, it’s best to test out the platform with a small budget at first to see if it works for you (more on that later).

Yelp and many of the other social platforms I’ve mentioned already often target small businesses with ad credits. It’s worth checking to see if they’re giving away, say, $50 in ad credits before you run a test campaign.

20. Local organizations

Finally, many local organizations offer advertising spots in their email or printed newsletters or at events.

If you do your research, you can find an organization with a very targeted membership, event attendance, or email subscriber base.

Now that we’ve covered some effective ways to advertise your small business, let’s get into how to tell if your campaign is working.

Costs, budgeting, and return on investment (ROI)

Because every ad strategy is different; it’s tough to know how much money you’ll need to spend to be successful. It really depends on your campaign objectives.

The best approach is to set a budget you can afford and reach out to a few channels that you’d like to test. Then measure the impact so you can learn which ones are working well.

You might need to test a few different messages to get it right, too.

If you feel uncomfortable creating the ads yourself (or simply don’t have the time), you can hire a freelancer or consultant to help you.

Factor in the cost of …

1. Creating the ads
2. Buying media, and
3. Resources to deploy and track

Although online advertising often appears more affordable than traditional advertising, you need to be realistic about the ROI, regardless of the channels you choose. Since advertising might be new to you, it’s important to approach it as a learning experience and improve on your results as you go.

As a result, a new business will need to dedicate a higher percentage of resources to advertising—usually between 12 and 20%—than an established business will.

Once you determine how much revenue you’re receiving from some of the various media sources I’ve listed above, you can adjust your strategy and budget towards the tactics that are working well for you.

Small business advertising: Catching the right customers

Whether you want to attract new customers or bring previous customers back to your business, an advertising strategy is essential in today’s marketplace. And you’ll catch more of them if it’s highly targeted, using the best placements and messaging to attract them at the right time.

You must work with your marketing team or person (or do the research on your own) to get the information you need to set up a campaign. You’ll also need a strategy to capture new customers and build loyalty or drive repeat purchases after they first buy from you.

Remember to start small. Then build on your budget and strategy as you learn and adjust to what is working for your business.

As your business grows, you can increase your advertising spend or hire someone full-time to manage it for you.

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