Free advertising with the DIY approach

Software and printing technology make DIY business advertising more possible

By Bob Emerald

In this struggling economy it is more important now than it ever has been to stand out from the crowd. This is true in any capacity or in any market, be it personal or professional, in business or in entertainment and whilst bespoke printing companies and online advertising agencies might be able to facilitate successful and extensive ad campaigns for your company, event, band, service or charity, neither will come particularly cheap.

As long as your business is a smaller operation and your proposed market is relatively local and self-contained, there is no need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on an extensive campaign to help your product or service stand out from the pack; in fact if anything, going with a traditional 'professional' approach will only make your ads blend in more with everything else. 

A 'DIY' approach might require a little more effort on your part, but it will prove significantly more affordable, will reveal a lot more of your personality and should make potential clients, fans and employees feel less like they're being approached by a 'faceless corporate entity' and more like they're being approached by an old friend.

Business

Let's say you are setting up a small home business or event and you need to get the word out. Why spend hundreds on expensive, glossy and soulless leaflets when all you need to stand out from the crowd is a little artistic know how, some coloured A4 paper and a set of decent quality writing utensils? The hand-drawn option might indeed take a great deal of time (and effort) but the 'homespun' look of your advertisements will let your potential customers know you're a local, hard working individual with bucket-loads of personality and flair. Whilst these are personality traits that might not technically be required, a consumer is far more likely to trust you if they see you as an actual human being and not just a cog in a machine. 

For more ambitious businesses meanwhile, there are of course more ambitious routes that could be taken. For example if your computers printer is up to the task, there is the option of using both plain and coloured bespoke A4 printer paper to print off more detailed, professional looking designs with the kind of glossy finish you'd expect from a professional print studio. This might negate the whole 'DIY aesthetic' but for numbers of anything more than one-hundred, hand-drawn ads just wouldn't prove realistic (unless you have an incredible amount of free time on your hands) and more ambitious businesses will most likely prefer to be represented by more standardised and professional looking paraphernalia.

Hobbies

For this example we're going to pretend we're promoting our local rock bands debut performance at a local bar. The potential market could potentially be county (or even country) wide but as this is a debut performance it is more than likely to only attract a local audience. In this case you might want to get a little more creative with your promotional material. 

As well as the traditional A4 posters (again a hand-drawn or printed approach is up to you), why not print off some coloured, CD sized flyers onto printer paper and ask the local paper if they would consider using them as inserts in their next weekly delivery? 

Also it's more than possible to create your own band merchandise. Tie-Dyeing might have been written off as a worthless 'hippie' pastime until recently but it has really come back in style in fringe cultures of late and could possibly be a great way of attracting fans who might be more into fashion than they are music. Local radio would also definitely be worth courting as well as any local record stores or places where potential fans are likely to 'hang-out'.

Of course with both of these examples, the methods are transferrable to any market. As with anything advertisement related, a good creative business mind always helps and the validity and a quality product or service is always going to be easier to sell then something you don't really believe in. But whether you're the 'Don Draper' of local business or not, hopefully with this article we've managed to at least prove that good ideas will always trump overzealous spending.

About the author: Bob Emerald is a writer who has a keen interest in business and believes that you don’t need to spend loads to advertise you business properly. He suggests simply using coloured A4 paper, a felt tip pen and some good old fashioned perseverance to promote your business in a more humanistic manner.

* Image license: Royalty and attribution free