Print advertising options?

Business Money
1

I haven’t been able to attend any of the entrepeneur meetings, so this topic may have been “done to death” already, sorry if that is the case. For my small business, I am always looking at free/cheap options for print advertising and just generally letting people know our online store exists. I was wondering if people here had discussed ideas about how to get this offline exposure in the local community? For example:

How do we find out about placing fliers in say the local newspapers? What kind of cost is one looking at?

Do other forumosans have small businesses they would like to promote through, say, placing fliers/vouchers from other businesses in their packages when they send out products to customers?

Does anyone know of organizations that print Chinese-language newsletters and look for advertisers at a fairly low cost? (For example, the Taiwan Infant Massage Association charges $500 for an ad in their newsletter, which is read Taiwan-wide, for those who sell family-oriented products, I can give you a contact there.)

Does anyone have contacts/info about organic stores or conservation groups that may be interested in having articles written in return for some mention of the products we offer? (Anywhere in Taiwan OK.)

Another entrepeneur suggested putting together a package for newcomers to Taipei, with some useful information and some vouchers/fliers for our businesses, mentioning forums like parentpages or forumosa as resources they can come to. Sharing the cost of printing etc would help keep our costs down.

Having not attended the meetings, I am not even sure of the makeup of the group, maybe the companies are a bit larger than mine and not really into this kind of promotion… anyway, just looking to brainstorm some ways to do promotion through cooperation rather than just big expenditure. Any ideas?

2

I think the entrepreneurship group will be the right place, where we have averything from ideas to viable business represented.

3

Mr He,

I’d love to go to the meetings but things like having children keep getting in the way… so I really do appreciate discussion here on the forum, if it is possible to share info from the meetings here.

4

Hi asiababy,

Does your business have a market in a fixed geographical location? If so, you might want to have the fliers distributed directly instead of trying to get in a separate publication. Of course if your market is larger than just the neighborhood around your store/office then this might not work for you.

Flier distribution usually has a minimum of 5000 pieces delivered and starts at $0.40 per piece. 5000 pieces will cover pretty much your primary market if you primarily serve a particular neighborhood.

My Subway restaurant recently did flier advertising for our grand opening sale. We spent $3000 getting 7000 fliers printed, and $2100 (incl tax) to have 5000 distributed to the neighborhood, with the other 2000 distributed in-store to customers. We ended up with a line all the way to the door for 11 hours straight.

5

Perhaps that would be a good idea to have a directory of appropriate businesses owned by members of FOrumosa. It can be placed as a sticky at the beginning.

I can certainly think of three or four right of my bat.

Kenneth

6

jlick,
thanks for that information, it is an option for us. do you know who i need to contact to arrange that kind of delivery?

7

The phone number for the company we used is (02)8964-1145. If you see someone delivering fliers you can also ask them which company they work for.