Many small businesses don’t have the budgets and funding to sponsor large advertising campaigns that will target customers and generate more sales. With few ideas of how to solve this problem and get over the advertising hurdle, many small or home-based businesses often do not last long and are forced to shut down with little or no revenue to show for it.
What most people don’t know is that there are several ways to advertise, target customers and make sales, all for free. One of the best ways to achieve this is through article writing. Local newspapers and trade magazines are always looking for content and, though editors might not always be willing to say this, they’ll often take press release-like articles and print them for free, all in an effort to fill up space and make their publication look as though it has more content.
The first step to getting published in a local paper or magazine is picking an engaging article topic that will not only interest readers but directly relate to your business and the products or services you offer. You should be incredibly familiar with the topic of your choice and try to keep in mind the type of people who will be reading the publication you’ll be printed in. You want to try and direct the article towards them and their needs, specifically in how your products or services can help them.
After you’ve selected a broad topic, sit and write down everything you know about the topic in bullet sentences. This exercise will serve as a great brainstorming technique and will help to organize your thoughts so you can create not one, but several well-written articles. Group together the bulleted points that relate most to one another and use these to write the first draft of your article. It’s important to be as specific as possible so that readers will recognize you as an expert on the topic. When they trust your knowledge, they’ll trust your business and be more likely to become customers.
When you’ve finished your first draft, go back, read the article over and make any necessary changes or edits. Be sure that the piece is grammatically perfect and that all the sentences and paragraphs flow with one another and make sense. Editors will be more likely to choose to run something if it is well written and addresses a specific, relevant topic. Be sure to include a biography and contact information within the article so that people can reach you and your business easily.
Though you may not have a large budget to pay for local advertisements, a great way to get your name out to the public and brand your business is to publish articles in local newspapers or magazines for exposure. Similar to press releases, the articles should contain relevant information about your business, products and services without signaling to the reader that you’ve written an advertisement. The more articles you print, the more familiar your name will be to the community and the more customers you’ll generate in the future.