Business Advertising to Sell Paintings

By Arthur Orchid

Even if I'm very focused on sharing my online experience about starting a business online, I sometime receive some emails from people like you and me asking me something I wasn't expecting or prepared to read... This time John A. asked me:
- Hey Arthur How can advertise my home business consisting on selling paintings?

I'm always happy to help so here is the article I wrote like I was John:

A lot of things about opening a business are difficult, but you never really realize how hard advertising new business is until you try it yourself. Don't get me wrong there're many simple techniques for business advertising. The problem is that not all of them work.

I'm opening a business online to sell my paintings. I painted a big sign above the door of my house, had a sort of grand opening ceremony, and even put up an ad in the newspaper. And what? I get no visible result because my advertising this way is too local.

Even if I knew that it would be an uphill battle to start a business, I didn't realize how bad it would be. For the first week or two, almost no one went in there. Then I had smart ideas about business advertising.

Being smart about business advertisements doesn't always mean the same thing to different businesses. I know someone who is involved in business online, he told me he uses some pretty sophisticated tricks. For him, it's all about maximizing Google hits and improving search results. He uses keyword lists, business articles, and links to popular websites as a way to promote his own business ventures. In my case, however, I don't need to bother with that kind of high-tech business advertising. I have a local business, after all. People out here don't really use the Internet that much at least for buying paintings.

No, the key is to maximize outdoor exposure. That means buying a billboard on the highway, first of all. I live pretty near to the interstate, but never thought of this business advertising technique until I had been in business for a month. Oh well, live and learn as they say. That billboard will probably bring me a lot of customers from out of town into my home paintings gallery, but I also want a local clientele. To do that, I heard I should invested in some snazzy neon signs. I discussed long enough with the salesman to be able to get a good deal on business signs. Everybody is happy in such circumstances! I can also handed out some posters showing one painting at strategic places into town: I only have be creative!

Although I spent a little bit of money in the short term doing this, in the long term I may have attracted a lot of repeat customers. So, as you can see Online Advertising is not always the best solution suitable for every business...





To Your Success!