When to market? ALWAYS. Where to market? EVERYWHERE. How to market? That's a question that if you don't know the answer, you'll want to hire someone to do it for you.
Marketing a product that you believe in is a fairly easy task, especially if the product is you or your company. Many people don't like to talk about themselves, or what they do, or strike up conversations with others about what they do. If that's you, then you need to seriously bring in a crew to do the marketing for you.
If you're starting out, aim local. Advertising on forums is something that you can do when you have an established brand, but if you're new, be prepared to see money spent with little to no reward.
Here's a simple and easy method for advertising;
Buy 100 postcard stamps from the US Post Office ($0.27 to send a 4.5x6 postcard). Overnight Prints currently has a 100 postcard offer for free. So for $27.00 (and some creative graphics), you can mail out to 100 prospective customers in your local area, setup a meeting, and bring them on board.
During this recession time that we're having, you may have noticed that your mail box hasn't had as many mailings in them, often with days of NO mail in the mailbox. This is because peopel cut back on spending, and one of the biggest was the direct mail. This means BIG BONUS to you! Since there is less junk mail in the mail box, you stand a better chance of being noticed!
Need other ideas? Look around your neighbourhood, what are others doing? Wear shirts, give out business cards, leave business cards in the resturant when you leave a tip, communicate with everyone!
I can't teach you to be a better marketer, but if you watch and listen, you'll see a lot of people with the same "type" of ideas which you can easily implement. They are tried and true methods, and they work, so you just need to put a game plan together, get good ad copy and hit the streets!
Though old snail mail is being slowly forgotten..
