Where can I advertise?

[LMW1990]

In 2020 I took the plunge into doing something I really love and started a very minuscule baking business. It's not my full time job, I work for the NHS, but my little business gives me so much joy and I've competed 300 orders this year alone.

I mainly advertise through word of mouth, work and Facebook. I have a Facebook page etc. and a decent following.

I'd love to more though. I'm struggling to think of places I can advertise. Do poster type adverts still work? Is there somewhere really obvious I'm missing?

You lovely lot helped me decide on my business name so I'm hoping you'll have some ideas on this too!

❤️

Twitter and Instagram
If it’s a local business only, an advert in one of those local newspaper free newsletter things (if you have one)
I don’t know if you already do this on Facebook but join lots of local groups specific to your areas and advertise on those too (check the rules of each group to see if this is okay to do).

@SoniaFouler thank you! I have to confess in a bit scared of Twitter and Instagram mainly because I have zero idea what I'm doing!

We do have a free local paper so I'll lol into that.

For Facebook I use marketplace and local group.

You need to target the businesses or groups that are more likely to buy your products.

Do you bake cakes? Get yourself known at the school gates, for parents organising birthday parties.

Do you make pies and tarts? Ask the community centres if there are any events you could sell/advertise at or that need catering, like tea dances, plays or charity bake sales.

Any local fairs you could get a stand at?

@EileenGC

I do make cakes but my 'go to' product is personalised giant cookies.

I have approached some local places that offer parties (play centres etc) and they either did not respond or simply said they would keep me in mind. Baking seems to be a very competitive market!

School is a good idea. I don't have children of my own but I do the school run twice a week for my step children. I'm still finding the confidence to speak to the parents but I do have a bit of a chat with a couple so perhaps it's worth mentioning 😊

[quote lmw1990]@SoniaFouler thank you! I have to confess in a bit scared of Twitter and Instagram mainly because I have zero idea what I'm doing!

We do have a free local paper so I'll lol into that.

For Facebook I use marketplace and local group. [/quote]
Twitter and Instagram are more global and not as “local” as Facebook. You don’t have to really know what you are doing - all you do is take pictures of your baking and upload them. You include hashtags which are used to categorise content. So for instance you could take a picture and then include the hashtags #cakes #Liverpool (swap #cakes and #Liverpool for whatever the picture is of and your actual location) and then anybody who is browsing Twitter or Instagram and searching for posts of cakes, or of Liverpool, will see your post amongst the others who have used the same tag. You can add lots of hashtags that you think is relevant to the picture you’re taking. It probably won’t be as successful as Facebook, but it’s an easy way to advertise, will take you only a few minutes to do each time, and even if you get only one customer out of it, that’s better than nothing! If you google Twitter for beginners or Instagram for beginners I’m sure there will be some help out there. Probably even, more specifically, searching for “how do I promote my local business using Twitter/Instagram?”