There are many advertising media but most small and medium businesses would settle for cost-effective media for aiming at their targeted audiences. Some of the cost-effective advertising media and methods are:

 

Paper-based advertising are the preferred methods for small budgets because of the ease of development and flexibility of changing the type of model. Paper based advertising methods are among some of the most cost effective advertising methods available.
 

Leaflets:A great example of this are leaflets which can be used from a small to a huge budget. If properly designed and distributed by your best product sales agent and his team of best sales agents to the right targeted audiences, Leaflets can have great impact on the turnover of your business if created properly and suitably to the available budget.

Brochures:Brochures are usually made from glossy paper. Real estate business is one of the best fields where brochures can compete with any other advertisement medium in terms of return on investment. As a real estate sales agent you can design your own brochure in a classy and professional manner, and embed delightful photographs of prospective homes and apartments. Brochures are a great medium to earn the trust of prospective customers right from the start, which is exactly what is desired when dealing in highly competitive markets. 

 

Email marketing is by far the most cost-effective advertisement medium. By choosing and narrowing down the right targeted audiences, Email advertising helps you to personalize and greet every member of the targeted audience and later allows you to build and cash in on customer loyalty. To get your targeted audiences to receive your email, you need the help of an efficient Email advertising vendor. With a huge database of opt-in email addresses, plus a wealth of demographic, psychological, lifestyle criteria and domain targeting techniques, you could advertise with accuracy, quickly and cost-effectively.

 

For a direct mail campaign to succeed, there should be confluence of four factors: a well-thought out strategy, an appealing marketing offer, a clearly targeted database and flawless implementation. There are many experienced direct mailing companies that use their vast resources to help you craft and implement a direct mail program that meets your product marketing objectives. This method is not so cost-effective as email and paper-based advertisements.

 

Here are some good internet techniques for advertising any product or service.
 

E-zines (Newsletters):are great tools to project your image to your target audiences. They can be given away freely with maximum content and minimum advertisement merely to establish your image.
 

Bonuses: Everyone welcomes bonuses, which means something added for free. For example, “Buy this wonderful baby care book at a throw-away price of just one dollar, and you get a free 4 day email course on lace designing!” would appeal to new and “would be” mothers.
 

Google Adwords: If you are looking for cost-effective, yet highly powerful means of advertising your products, Google Adwords provides highly targeted advertisements irrespective of your budget.
 

Forums:Forums are an effective tool to generate traffic to your website, the key being to give great content to whatever your business, product, or service you are advertising.
 

Web Banner Advertising:Whatbillboard advertising is to roads, banner advertising is to the web! These are the horizontal advertisement strips that are seen at the top of the web page. Your web banners would be a link to your business web page, which is related to the content on the existing website.

 

Blogs:Blogs have now become tremendously popular and are being used as effective advertising and marketing tools. Advertising blogs often make use of Search Engine Marketing techniques for ensuring better search results on the web. You can create a corporate blog for your business to reach out to your customer base on the internet.

Text messaging (SMS) is one of the most popular features of mobile phones. Mobile marketing is an advertising vehicle that is spontaneous, inexpensive, interactive and target-specific. It caters to the 18 – 45 year audience. SMS advertisement is also immediate and guaranteed because the moment the mobile owner receives the SMS, he/she is compelled to open it. SMS advertisement is highly cost-effective.

 

In recent times, T-shirts have become the rave of advertisement companies. T-shirts are the best medium for announcing big conventions or conferences. T-shirts are like walking sign-boards. They are the most cost effective advertising medium for huge seminars and conferences. To quickly create customized T-shirts, you can get hold of marketing promotion screen printers and thousands of T-shirts would be ready in a couple of hours. 

 

Radio advertisements can be heard anywhere – in the bathroom, during travel, while shopping, or in the restaurant. They allow you to target your audiences based on geographical location, time and program format. The most appealing feature of radio advertising is the conversational tone in the advertisements. Another useful feature is the choice of varying the frequency of your advertisements – once in 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, etc. Radio stations have their own studios that can develop your advertisements in minutes or hours by their studio professionals. Radio advertisement is ideal for local target audiences because you can tie them up to the local demographic features such as events, festivals, climate, etc. This medium is also cost-effective.

 

Everyone loves monogrammed gift pens. Pens are daily needs and symbolize culture and sophistication. They are appreciated by everyone. Irrespective of your industry, business, or target audience, promotional pens are a versatile choice and they can be very inexpensive if ordered in bulk. 

We have so far been talking of conventional advertisements. People have developed “billboard fatigue”. But an inflatable helium balloon is something different. Your heavenly advertisement persists in the audience minds for a long time. Helium advertising blimps are known to be one of the most cost effective outdoor advertising solutions available. 

Maria Johnsen