How can I advertize for my new small service based business?

Fliers. you could head out to a big parking lot, and just put those fliers out on cars that everyone usually throws away anyways.

It would cost some money to buy an Ad in the phone book, but might be worth it later.

Could buy a spot in the newspaper.

You may just want to start out in a residential area, and walk door to door, carrying informational packets, and setup times to stop by and estimate for them.

The fastest, easiest way to do this is quite simply: The internet. However, because your business if face-to-face, probably will perpetuate on a word-of-mouth basis, and is largely local (maybe regional) it the target scope… the internet may not prove so sound a tool as it would if you were servicing clients nationwide.

The problem with internet marketing is that you are going to compete with other service providers on a global scale (but typically just nationally here in the States). Regardless, you must maintain a local target market while competing on a grander stage.

Start with a blog or two. Then promote,promote,promote. Take advantage of your biggest selling point that is also a big issue that carries a lot of weight on the internet: Environmental Friendliness or “Green-Friendly”.

Get your blog going, learn about internet marketing, get yourself on Social Sites (Twitter, Digg, etc) and get your name and your cause out there. Then sell yourself to the eco-awareness sites out there and do some link swapping.

As for your local campaign, start with a few signs on some high-traffic corners with your phone number. It would be cheap, cover a great deal of area with marketing, and are flexible (i.e. you can move them around town). Remember, people seem to LOVE this new Green attitude sweeping the globe. Capitalize on it, but you’d better find ways to counteract the whole objection about CF light bulbs leaking mercury gas. Good luck!

Wouldn’t making hundreds of copies and putting them on people’s cars where they will end up scattered all over the parking lot be a bad way to advertise an eco-friendly business? That doesn’t sound very eco-friendly.

I’d personally find a way to play off of the eco-friendliness of your business. Find biodegradable business cards or something (I know all paper is biodegradable, but you get where I’m going).

@StellarAirman hahaha good point, I didn’t think about that!

Try viral marketing.
Word of mouth is cheap, innovative (as your business), and if done properly, highly effective.

Another thing I’d do is give some information away free as a teaser.

If you make a flyer or brochure, target it to a particular neighborhood. Find out what they pay for kilowatts per hour and figure up how much they could save by doing X.

For instance you could go out at 3 in the morning to all of the houses with porchlights on and hang a little card on the light that said, “If you had turned off this light instead of leaving it on all night, you could have saved $X.XX this year. For more tips, contact me!”

Of course walking up to people’s doors at 3am might not be the best idea, but you could just hang it on every porch light instead.

Or if you wanted to spend a little money you could buy an eco-friendly lightbulb or something and leave it on people’s porches and say how much that bulb will save them over a year, and say to contact you if they want to save more.

If you want to go door to door you could simply walk up to people’s houses and take a quick glance of the things they could improve just on the front of the house. Replacing the lightbulb on the front porch, fixing a leaky faucet, cutting the grass less often, whatever you see that could improve and give them a little breakdown of just what you see in the front yard. That may be enough to get them hooked and invite you in for more info.

Seems like a rough business to actually make money at, though I guess if you pick the right neighborhoods you may find clients. Many of the eco-friendly tips I’ve seen only save a couple of dollars a month, so assuming your consultation costs a couple hundred dollars, they aren’t going to see a return on their investment for a few years, most likely.

Start a blog. Send out a press release offering news about your business and a few suggestions for saving energy. Some local newspaper may interview you.

@cwilbur good suggestions. I am particularly speaking about the blog. If you already have a site this would be a great addition, if you don’t have a site then its time to get your ass in gear because the internet is going to be your best friend as you start your business. Message me if you would like some more (free of course) in-depth advice on getting a blog started, I used to start blogs for corporations that didn’t understand how they worked.

Word-of-mouth is definitely a good way to go – when I started my business (a personal assistant/errand service), almost all of my clients were people who found me through word of mouth. Do a little write-up of what services you’ll be providing, email it to everyone you know, and ask them to pass the word on to their friends – you might not get much work from your friends, but friends of friends are very likely to hire you (since they’ve got a personal recommendation from the friend you have in common).

Also, since you’re going to be looking for local work, I’d see if your neighborhood has a local magazine or newsletter, and whether you can put an ad in it. Ads in those sorts of publications are usually cheaper than something more widespread, and it’ll get your name out to the right people. Advertising at local organizations might be a way to go too, especially if you have groups near you that are focused on green living – they might have a bulletin board or a newsletter where you could advertise cheaply (or maybe even for free).

Good luck!

Agreed with so much above – our industry is so heavily dependent on referrals and word of mouth. Always, always have your business card on you – I can’t believe how many architects and designers forget that stuff at home or leave it at work. I cannot stress this enough. A lot of the contacts you meet will be in places that aren’t work related, so please keep your cards stocked and on you at all times. The other benefit of having those cards is that, when exchanging contact info at parties, the grocery store….all that info is already there if they want to go check out your business side.

You might want to get a website. Link it on your blog. Link it on twitter. You get the idea. Integrate what you do with that persona. Blogs are good for the stream-of-consciousness or opinion aspect of your work; the actual website should be a more static, concise, and professional representation of what you’re doing. Also, after spending more time with it, that is where you can keep your mission statement, examples of past work, or curriculum vitae.

(I fully encourage and support what you’re doing, you make me so proud! I wish I could do what you’re doing.)

Take out an ad for one of the fliers that they have in the racks at various health food stores. You will then have a great medium that will allow you to focus your skills to a more willing target audience.