Get the word out about your business or charity
Business owners and charity directors, is there any such thing as too much promotion? If you’re like most, you know you don’t advertise as much as you should.
Besides the wonderful advertising opportunity participating in Northern Colorado Community Barter presents, there are many cutting edge and inexpensive (or even free) advertising opportunities all around you, just waiting for you to take advantage of them.
This page is meant to be a resource for you. Here are some advertising venues and services you can consider for your overall marketing plan. Some are local and some are nationwide while offering local targeting.
If you are a local advertiser who would like to offer an exclusive deal for Northern Colorado Community Barter members, please contact me (Fernanda Powers) and let’s talk about it!
Without further ado, here are some advertising options for you to check out, in no particular order. These companies are independent of NCCB and not necessarily members–you work things out directly with them. As a matter of full disclosure, many of them do have affiliate programs which means your participation will financially benefit either NCCB or one or more NCCB team members.
The Lyric Cinema Cafe offers advertising on the big screen. Your ad will play up to eight times a day for up to a month at a time. Northern Colorado Community Barter members get an unbelievable 34% discount off the regular price. Not only that, the majority of the cost is payable in barter tokens!
Does your business need some extra local exposure? Then definitely check out the Lyric Advertising Special for NCCB business members and partner charities!
Google Places If you do nothing else for your promotion, at least get on the map–the Google map. People today no longer use the Yellow Pages to find businesses they need. They go straight to the search engines. If your business is not listed in the search engine, and if it isn’t found on the Google Maps, it might as well not exist. You need to be listed. To get started, simply click on the link and follow the instructions for adding your business to the map. You will then need to confirm with Google that you indeed own the listing, and you’re done. You can add pictures, videos, hours of operation and so much more to your listing.
If you’re an NCCB member and need some assistance with Google Places, I’ll be happy to help you. Just drop me a line.
The Customer Advantage builds on the great ideas started by Groupon and Living Social. Rather than spend a lot of money just on promotion, you put it towards offering a deep discount–50% off or more–on a package you put together. The Customer Advantage will work with you to put the deal together and will promote it by email to its local members free of charge. You pay nothing until someone actually takes advantage of the deal. In other words, you only pay for successful promotion. To get started, click on the “Feature my business” link on the site.
Once you’ve registered your business, be sure to also join as a member and then share your link with your customers. Why? Because you will earn 5% every time a member you refer takes advantage of a deal, no matter which business is offering the deal.
You can also join as a charity and encourage your members and supporters to join through your link.
Be Local is a nonprofit advocacy organization for Northern Colorado local businesses and food producers. Business members are invited to year-round networking and educational events. Be Local also provides some advertising and promotion through partner advertisers, online social media, appearances on local radio stations and articles in local publications. Be Local has been a powerful voice encouraging people in Northern Colorado to choose to spend their dollars locally.
Varolo is a result of the ability we have thanks to technology to completely cut out television commercials. Rather than give up completely on that form of advertising, you simply switch gears slightly and play your ads to an audience of people who have already agreed to view them. Varolo members are rewarded in various ways when they and their referrals watch your ads. You can target your ads by gender, age, geographical region and more, and you get return on investment tools that tell you how your ad is being received. You pay by the ad view as you go with no obligation. All you need is a thirty second video ad to get started.
Once you have your video ad, be sure to also add it to your YouTube channel and embed it into your member profile so visitors to this site can also see it. Here is a good tutorial on how to set up your own YouTube channel. YouTube itself can be a great source of promotion, and it’s free.
Need some help creating a video commercial? Chris Yankowski is an informal NCCB member who provides videography services. He’ll take barter tokens in payment and offers an exclusive discount to NCCB members. Contact me and I’ll put you two in touch.
Social Media usually refers to Facebook and Twitter but it can include any of hundreds of social networking sites on the Internet. You definitely want to build a presence for your business on Facebook and you do this by creating a fan page–it’s free. Facebook will walk you through the basic process of creating your fan page. You should add your logo, some pictures and videos, and information and helpful content about your business, such as your location, store hours, upcoming sales and events.
When you have your fan page up, be sure to stop by the NCCB fan page and tell us about your page so we can share it with our fans.
You can easily set up a Twitter profile for your business and keep in touch with your customers who use Twitter.
Be sure to include links to all your business social media profiles and pages on your main website and your NCCB member profile. Make a point to tell your existing customers about your new profiles so they can get up to the minute news from you in the manner they prefer.
Are you an advertiser in Northern Colorado who specializes in social media? Would you like to offer NCCB members an exclusive deal? If so, please contact me and let’s chat.
Mobile Marketing is the most cutting edge form of advertising currently available. More people in the world access the Internet through their cell phones than through personal computers. People use their cell phones to search Google for local businesses while they are out and about. You can get your ad on people’s cell phones and even provide special coupons that can be read right from the phone through a process called mobile marketing. NCCB is actively looking for a local provider of mobile marketing services to partner with. Please contact me if you would like to offer a great deal to NCCB members!
Coming soon: More information on local advertising venues.
Do you provide advertising in the Northern Colorado Community? Please contact me and let me know about your great services!
Photo Credit:
Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Last Updated (Friday, February 25, 2011 — 10:26 PM)
