10 Cheap Advertisement Ideas for New Businesses

The global advertising industry is estimated to be worth over a trillion dollars. That number dwarfs the collective worth of just about every other industry that’s not named “Big Tech”.

Why do businesses spend so much on advertising/marketing? Because the economy has attracted several competitors into the business arena and now more than ever, companies have to spend big bucks to stand out.

If you’re a company that doesn’t have big bucks to spend, how can you cut through the clutter and find your audience?

In our opinion, the best thing that you can do is invest in cheap advertisement ideas. Here are 10 great ones to get your creative juices flowing.

1. Handing Out Flyers

Giving out flyers is the grandfather of all cheap advertisement ideas. You just print out whatever your marketing message is, stand on a busy street corner and hand it out to whoever is willing to participate.

This marketing method doesn’t have a high conversion rate, but it’s affordable and will definitely help get the conversation going around your brand. For example, the real estate companies – their marketing seems to be hinged on their real estate flyers ending up in your letterbox.

Flyers still work, and your company can gain traction using them. Just make sure they have all the ways your business can be found online and consider using a QR code for a special offer, as this action turns the humble flyer into interactive marketing!

2. Guerilla Billboards

Billboards are a great way to advertise. Unfortunately, billboards are also insanely expensive.

If you want to have a similar effect at a fraction of the cost, print out some colorful advertisements and stick them around town.

Popular places to throw up guerilla billboards are on phone poles, subway stations, and benches.

Just be wary that some strict communities might try to find you for “vandalism”.

3. Content Marketing

Build a blog and write a ton of content on topics related to your products and services. The more you write, the more likely that Google will be to send people asking questions about your field to your website.

This practice is called content marketing, and if you know a thing or two about SEO, you can really plus out your blog’s ability to pull in potential customers.

4. Door Hangers

Here’s a cheap advertisement idea favorite that’s sure to catch eyeballs… Door hangers!

Door hangers are pretty cheap to have printed, and leveraging them is as easy as going house to house and slinging them over doorknobs.

Just be sure to skip over houses with “no soliciting” signs out of respect for their marketing preferences.

5. Social Media

The Mecca of cheap digital marketing methods is social media marketing. All you have to do to start spreading your brand message on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., is create an account and start posting.

Getting traction on social media can be hard, so don’t be discouraged if your initial foray into engaging potential customers is slow-going.

Our advice is to make sure that you interact with other people’s posts and engages with potential customers organically so that you can build trust and a positive online reputation.

6. Cross-Promote

We love cross-promotion as a cheap advertisement ideas suggestion because it’s very effective and 100% free.

Here’s how it works:

If you own a paper company, partner with a company that sells things that you don’t but have customers interested in buying paper. An example might be a copy machine company.

You can strike a deal with that company where you’ll refer all of your paper customers to them, and they, in return, will refer all of their copy machine customers to you.

This arrangement is mutually beneficial and doesn’t eat into either business.

7. Conduct Webinars

People love learning new things, and they love convenience. You can give them both of those things by hosting live online webinars.

A webinar is basically a live streaming video where you teach people in your target market something of value. For example, a real estate agent might host a webinar for people interested in buying homes that explain the process of getting a home loan.

The key with webinars is that at the end of them, you’ll want to ask your viewers to buy something off of you or hire you to do something.

Keeping with our real estate example, the agent might ask webinar attendees to hire him/her as their agent at the end of the presentation.

8. Comment on Relevant Content

A great way to build trust with potential consumers and passively market your services is to find websites that discuss your industry and comment on people’s questions.

You see this tactic used frequently in the medical space.

People might ask questions like how much a particular plastic surgery costs on cosmetic augmentation forums, and surgeons will chime in with what averages are, how much they charge and how the interested party can get in touch with them.

9. Use Those Ad Promo Credits

When you build your website, your web host will almost always offer you free ad credits for Facebook, Google and Bing. Unfortunately, almost nobody uses those credits, and they absolutely should because they’re free!

If you’re intimidated when it comes to setting up pay-per-click ad campaigns through services like those we’ve just mentioned, these tips can help you craft quality ads. There are also several other tutorials online that can step you through the ad creation process.

10. Upgrade Your Email Signature

Wouldn’t it be great if you could passively advertise your business every time you sent an email? You can.

Just go into your email signature, add your company’s name, logo and contact information to it and just like that, you’ll enjoy a valuable brand deposit whenever you hit send.

Closing Out Our Cheap Advertisement Ideas

Cheap advertisement ideas are plentiful and are only limited by your creativity. Have a think on which of our suggestions above might work best for you, or feel free to come up with a few ideas of your own.

If you need more marketing inspiration, the content on our blog is a great resource that you should dive deeper into now!