How to Advertise Locally Without a Budget

One of our readers, Maria, asked a question on the Contact Us page of the site. Her question was:

“I am trying to figure out the best way to advertise my short term rental and don’t know how to get the word out. Any ideas?”

I assume that Maria doesn’t have a lot of money to advertise that her property is available and wants to do it herself instead of listing with a Realtor. Given today’s economy, the market is probably flooded with other similar properties in the area all asking for the same price or less.

You may have the same issue with your business or product, tons of competition and little to no money for advertising. Well, it’s time to get creative and start implementing some Guerrilla Marketing tactics. Hopefully you have a little time on your hands or can re-prioritize to find some.

I’ll start with an obvious one for real estate but this works for selling products and professional services as well. Try a posting on Craigslist.com for FREE. First start by looking through different areas, maybe not just your local area, and find compelling headline ideas. Spend time on figuring out what will be most enticing in your headline. Adverbs like new, modern, renovated, exclusive, etc. may get you some attention and encourage people to click on your ad and not just skip by it. Also try to include flattering pictures. If you aren’t good with photography, ask a friend or family member to help out. Don’t include dark photos and take time to arrange your property or product in an organized and professional manner. The key to Craigslist is monitoring it on a daily basis. If many people are posting regularly it will fill up and your ad will move to the second or third page and go unseen. You must repost your ad so it stays on the front page and visible.

Unfortunately sometimes there’s just too much competition on Craigslist or not enough traffic to really promote your place, business or product. So it’s time to get creative. Consider creating a Flyer, nothing fancy just something clean with an interesting headline and maybe a photo or two. Try posting these photos in your local area, on phone poles, at a church, a local retailer, grocery store, recreation center, etc. Get creative and you should have some luck.

Here’s a great blog post from Chris Brogan, talking about a small business that needs to promote their business locally. Read through the comments there’s a lot of great ideas there.
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/can-social-media-save-a-local-business/#comments

If you have any other ideas for Maria or our other visitors please share them below in the comments section.