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31 Small Business Advertising Ideas To Boost Sales

by Campbell Jof Tweet - in Small Business

advertising ideas

Last updated on December 28th, 2023

To run a business successfully and to compete well in the market, you’ll need to ensure that your products/services are visible to potential customers all the time. Your target audience must see your business, products, or services on every possible public platform. With increasing numbers of people visualizing a brand regularly, the chances are that a business can convert many of them into loyal customers. Therefore, advertising ideas for impressive visibility are significant for the steady growth of businesses.

Newly opened businesses need to advertise their products or services more aggressively for increased brand awareness. Since they are starting new in their niche market, they must grab people’s attention to their business and company.

It has to be done regularly so that people get habituated to see those advertisements for your offerings. When they see visuals of your products or services around, they start recognizing your business.

If you too are a small business owner, use advertising ideas as your powerful tool to turn people’s heads toward your company.

Remember that the attention span of modern-day customers is reducing every day, which is a big challenge for marketers in terms of catching potential customers’ eyes. Therefore, a routine advertisement is not going to serve the purpose today.

The importance of advertising for businesses is clear from the recommendations of the US Small Business Administration. The SBA suggests that businesses should spend 7 to 8 percent of their gross revenue on marketing and advertising.

But if you are in a highly competitive industry, the spending should go up to 20%. Also, you must uniquely present your advertisements to drive attention. In fact, there are some unusual ways to advertise your business. You should take advantage of these ideas for brand promotion.

Explore These Brilliant Advertising Ideas For Your Small Business

01. Create A Hype

One of the proven tricks to make people taking notice of your small business is to create hype about it. You can raise banners, stick posters around the city, or send giant balloons up in the sky. But make sure that you put up content that raises curiosity.

Brilliant Advertising Ideas

So, create excellent content and create some hype by using some regular advertisement means. Your target audience will surely notice your offerings in the market.

02. Explore Graffiti

Graffiti is writing or designing something exciting on walls without permission for public view. You can use this medium to your advantage by creating ads for your small business.

This unconventional and cost-saving idea should be used in a targeted area where your potential customers frequently roam around.

Advertising Idea

03. Use Your Store For Branding

How about using your own store to project an impressive image of your products? When people visit your store, make sure that they see its walls decorated with your branding elements of colors and images.

In fact, you can use everything in the store, including furniture, for brand exposure.

Branding

For example, keep your brochure just within easy reach of customers who come to your store. If you won any award for business, display it on the walls so that everyone can see it.

04. Give Brochures

Brochures are one of the most sophisticated ways to make the right impression on customers. Design your brochures uniquely with your brand colors and put them at the strategic places in your store.

You can also find other stores and partner shops just to let your brochures be there within reach of the customers. Make sure that brochures contain detailed information about your products or services, as well as your contact details.

Brochure Design

05. Put Banners

Banners are also amongst the most used small business advertising ideas that small businesses explore. Since banners are visible from a good distance, you can hang them at strategic places in your locality.

Banner Design

Put a banner outside of your store as well. It should showcase any new product that you recently launched or any discounts that you’re currently offering.

06. Distribute Flyers

Flyers are amongst the cheapest advertising materials, as these are one-leaf content that you can distribute to passersby.

Just stand at any place in your local area and start handing out flyers with content about your business and its offerings. Cash in on the opportunity by giving the flyers to as many people as you can.

Flyer Design

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07. Stick Posters

Find the right places where you can stick posters of your products. Know that posters are visible to people instantly while they stroll around the city.

Since they are in a mood to enjoy their day, many of them tend to read content on posters just out of curiosity. So get the poster designs created by a professional graphic designer to ensure that they are exciting and impressive.

Poster Design

08. Put Ads In Newspapers

How about making good use of print media? While it may be a little costly for new entrepreneurs, it is highly rewarding in terms of viewership and driving customers.

You can use the huge subscriber base of a newspaper to your advantage by making them see your advertisements in it. Even a local area newspaper has thousands of readers, who are your potential customers of products or services.

Newspaper Ad Design

09. Use Magazines

If you think that your target customers read magazines, then use a few such magazines for advertising your offerings. Magazines are surely effective small business marketing tactics you should explore. You should think of promoting your discounts or coupons in magazines.

Magazine Design

10. Explore Movie Theatre Ads

Almost everyone loves to go to a movie theater to watch the latest feature films. You can explore this popular medium by putting advertisements for your small business.

It may be a little expensive for small businesses, but it pays in the end for reaching out to masses. You should create some catchy ads, especially for these theatres.

Advertising Ideas

11. Use Radio Ads

Radio ads are amongst the most effective traditional marketing ideas you should explore as per your budget. These ads are based on text content only.

Therefore, use the words that people want to listen to and make sure that the language is simple and clean. Your radio ads should include all the significant benefits of your products.

Radio Advertising Ideas

12. Put Ads On Vehicles

Vehicle ads are amongst the most used advertising ideas. In this medium, which is a little expensive for small businesses, you should hire a vehicle and wrap it with your advertisement.

Although it is a costly means of advertising, it will help your new business grab the attention of millions of people as the vehicle roams around the city or parks somewhere.

Vehicle Advertising Ideas

Since the logo of your company will appear on all the social and physical platforms, hire the services of a professional to design a logo. Your company’s logo, along with other graphics, must be alluring to the viewers.

13. Use T-Shirts For Promotion

Everyone loves to wear t-shirts to enjoy strolling in a city. You can make some of them wear your branded t-shirts. This way, you will turn them into walking billboards.

They will be wearing your company’s slogan, logo, and engaging content about your products or services. With this trick, a small business can hope to target many thousands of potential customers.

T-Shirts For Promotion

14. Put Stickers On Cars

One of the tested advertising ideas is to use car stickers. Take permission of car owners to put a sticker of your company’s logo on their cars.

Give some incentives to the car owners so that they let you stick your logo on their vehicles. Try giving them some discount on your products as an incentive.

Car Advertisement Idea

15. Sponsor A Prize

Your local area may be organizing an event where winners get prizes. In one such event, you can sponsor the award given to the winners.

It is one of the effective marketing ideas for small businesses as it helps draw the attention of the target audience. So, you can think of giving your coupons, products, vouchers, etc. as prizes to the winners.

Sponsor A Prize

16. Online Newspaper Ads

One of the best ways to advertise is to put ads on online news sites. There are many news portals such as Top Ten Corner and other sites that display ads as their source of generating revenue.

By placing your ads on them, you can surely take advantage of their readership to reach thousands of people.

Online Newspaper Ad Design

17. Use Google My Business

You should enlist your new or small business in ‘’Google My Business’’ so that your potential customers can easily find your company. This process of enlisting is free.

You can also create your free website with this site. In fact, according to VoyMedia Advertising Agency NYC, this is a great free platform to give exposure to your new business.

Google My Business

18. Create A Compelling Email Signature & Related Tools

Even your email signature can become a tool to convert the email recipients into customers. When they see a catchy visual in the form of a signature, they’ll surely be impressed by your imagination and professional approach to run business.

An email signature usually contains the company’s logo and contact points. All these will work as an ad for your brand.

Also, you can add a business phone system or office phone system instead of analog telephone lines that can act as a virtual phone system and even help convert your regular emails to voicemails.

Email Signature Design

19. Pay For Ranking Your Site

In digital marketing, paid search is often used by small businesses to rank their business website higher on the search engines. Simply put, a paid search works like a pay-per-click model where you pay the search engine for every click on your advertisement.

Remember that by ranking your site higher on the search results, you will make it visible to the people who come online to search for products or services.

New Advertisement Ideas

20. Explore Your Newsletters

Amongst the most used advertising ideas is to use your own newsletters that contain your company’s ads. All you need to do is to gather as many email addresses as you can. Then, send your newsletters to them through emails. Your target audience will see your ads this way.

Explore Your Newsletters

21. Promote Your Awards Badge

A trick to promote your small business is to first participate in business awards competition online. There are many such competitions taking place online frequently.

When you win one such award, it becomes a prestigious occasion for your business. You can then promote this achievement everywhere; including your website, social profile, and local stores, etc.

Promote Your Award Badge

22. Explore Messenger Ads

One of the best ways to advertise is to put your ads on the messengers on social media. So, think of using Facebook messenger, for instance, to place your ads on it. When a potential customer clicks on the ad, it will take him to your website.

Explore Messenger Ads

23. Write On Your Social Accounts

Social media is undoubtedly a proven way to take your small business to millions of people in a quick time. You should create a social media page for your business on different social media platforms.

Then update your target audience regularly by posting content. Similarly, invite comments on your products from customers and interact with them by actively responding to their queries.

Social Media Page Design

24. Use Reviews

Online reviews are one of the tested marketing ideas for small businesses. People have faith in what other customers have to say about a product from their first-hand experience. It is the best way to advertise your products.

After a customer has bought your product or service, encourage him or her to write a review of it online. This measure will give credibility to your business.

Use Reviews

25. Take Advantage Of Influencers

There are many celebrities on different social media platforms, having millions of followers. You can take advantage of their mass following by asking one of them to endorse your product.

This trick may be a little expensive, but it helps you get the desired sales due to sudden attraction for your business.

Advantage Of Influencers

26. Put Video Ads

You should also explore video ads as one of the most used advertising ideas in modern times. Videos have millions of people as their audience. So, find out which videos are attracting people and have your ads placed on them.

You can also put your short video ads on your social media accounts. But create these ads by hiring graphic design services of professionals.

Put Video Ads

27. Create Ads For Occasions

There are some occasions, such as national holidays, International Labor Day or Women’s Day, and Earth Day, etc. People are emotionally attached to these special days.

Since they relate themselves with these days, you should create such advertisements that can connect with your audience emotionally.

Ads For Occasions

28. Explore Local Chamber Of Commerce

Your local chamber of commerce is essential for the growth of your business in many ways. But when it comes to advertisements, you should grab a chance to advertise your products on many platforms that the chamber sponsors.

When you meet your potential clients during on the sidelines of these events, do not forget to offer them your business card. The interested business owners can then contact you later for any queries.

29. Blogging

Blogging is one of the great advertising ideas for your small business. All you need to do is to start blogging about your business and industry and post useful content that helps resolve your customers’ issues.

People will start seeing you as an authority in your niche industry and business. That is the way to win more customers for your business.

Ads For Occasions

30. Create A Referral Promotion

You can also explore the possibilities that are there in referral programs. Just give your customers some incentives for referring your products or services to their peers and family.

Word of mouth spread in this way is often the most effective for bringing more customers to your business.

31. Punched Cards

Most shops give punched cards to customers when they buy products. They can win free products, gifts, or refills when the number of punches reaches a certain level.

So, let your audience know what they are going to get as the free punched card offer. Spread a word about the offer, which could be your product, on social media, and across all mediums. This helps in giving a boost to sales.

These are the major advertising ideas for your small business. Initially, you should focus only on a few of them as you may be facing a shortage of cash to spend on marketing. Then, gradually use more of these platforms to take your business to more people.

Designhill is the creative marketplace that you will need to create visuals that you use in advertisements.

You can use this site to have many design ideas for your ads and logos etc. by launching your design contest. In the end, you choose one winning design at an affordable price for your business.

Are You Looking for a New Graphic Designer?If Yes, Call Us on +1-855-699-2851 [times for calling 9am to 6pm EST (US)] or Register for a Free Design Consultation

Wrapping Up

Small businesses can grow steadily with the help of unique advertising ideas. They can explore many such ideas to promote their small companies and products or services by putting ads on these modern platforms. These useful platforms to put advertisements are spread all across the online and offline space. But start first with a few of them and then explore more avenues to place your ads for maximum attention.

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I'm a blogger and designer and I work as a creative head for Designhill. I write on topics concerning design, ecommerce, startups, digital marketing, interactive content. My creative work has earned me several laurels over the years. Facebook | Twitter | Google+

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