Free Restaurant Advertising Ideas

We have some great free restaurant advertising ideas here for you! You'll want to let customers know about your new business or your business that has seen a decrease in business and may not have thought about your advertising budget yet. Advertising can be very expensive and a necessary evil to help your bottom line. There are so many other things you need to spend your hard earned money on, especially in a restaurant, so how do you get the word out? We share our best ways to advertise that are free, easy, little maintenance and that work to let customers know about you and your business.

Looking for Free Business Advertising? Great, we can help. Being in business for yourself can be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life but, it can also be extremely costly especially if
you have employees, building rent or mortgage, utilities, commercial equipment, licensing fees and the list goes on and on.

You need ways to save money for yourself and your business and can't always afford the expense of advertising but, you must find ways to get the word out and let customers know about you and your business. Some of the most costly ways to advertise include television, radio, billboards, magazine advertising and yellow pages listings which can add thousands of dollars a month to your expenses. If you want to stay in business and make a profit, there are better ways to use the money you would have spent on these types of advertising methods.

Let's look at some ways to advertise your business for Free that are also easy to do and don't require a lot of maintenance on your part. Some you may already know and use and others are probably new ideas that you can and should implement quickly to reach more customers.

Did you know the average costs for advertising for small business?

According to iesmallbusiness.com, these are the latest statistics for costs of advertising.

Cost of advertising is different in each city or part of the world and depending on the medium chosen. Nevertheless, it's an expense you may or may not be able to afford.

"Average Costs for Advertising:

Newspapers - $1,300 per week for 2" x 2" ad
Television - $200,000 for one 30-second commercial (during prime-time)
Direct Mail - $1,500 for 1,000 4x6 postcards (includes postage)
Radio - $90 to $120 per week on a rotator (prices higher if time slots for ad are selective)
Magazines - $1,200 to $5,000 per month or per issue (depends on ad size and demographics)
Outdoor (billboard) - $3,000 to do artwork and install media on billboard; rates depend on impress level, ranges from $5,000 to $500,000 (the higher the qualify of the artwork and the larger the demographic group, the higher the price); minimum contract is 16 weeks
Online - $0.60 pay-per-click or $1,200 - $1,800 a month for aggressive campaigns (does not include search engine optimization) or $200 to $1,200 per year per banner ad on websites"

     Advertise For Free:

1) Set up a Facebook account and create a 'page' about your business. It's easy and fast to do, you can add photos, your address, your hours, your specialty and any coupons or discounts that people can only get fro

Free Advertising - Get the Word Out

Best Ways to Advertise Your Business For Free and ways we also use to save money

Looking for Free Business Advertising? Great, we can help. Being in business for yourself can be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life but, it can also be extremely costly especially if you have employees, building rent or mortgage, utilities, commercial equipment, licensing fees and the list goes on and on.

You need ways to save money for yourself and your business and can't always afford the expense of advertising but, you must find ways to get the word out and let customers know about you and your business. Some of the most costly ways to advertise include television, radio, billboards, magazine advertising and yellow pages listings which can add thousands of dollars a month to your expenses. If you want to stay in business and make a profit, there are better ways to use the money you would have spent on these types of advertising methods.

Let's look at some ways to advertise your business for Free that are also easy to do and don't require a lot of maintenance on your part. Some you may already know and use and others are probably new ideas that you can and should implement quickly to reach more customers.

(image courtesy of istockphoto.com)

You need ways to save money for yourself and your business and can't always afford the expense of advertising

Open a Yelp Account

Yelp is an internationally known website that helps to connect customers to businesses through reviews. Yelp.com started in 2004 and is listed as an accredited business in the BBB (Better Business Bureau). Oftentimes, customers will look for the best business by what other customers have to say about it through reviews. According to their website "Yelp had an average of approximately 66 million monthly unique visitors in Q4 2011." More than 600,000 businesses have a listing on Yelp and more than 25 million reviews are posted on Yelp.

Create a free account at Yelp.com and list your business. You can post your hours, specialty, any special discounts or offers, what makes your business the best in your area, about you or your management team, any special events and some history about your business. Add photos of your business to Yelp and customers can also add their own photos. Once your Yelp account is set up (and it only takes a few minutes to type in all the information in the appropriate fields), your work is done.

Yelp also has a section that helps you to track your monthly visitors so you can see that people actually are looking at your site and what reviews are posted. Keep it legitimate and don't add fake reviews, that's never a good idea in business and can get your account at Yelp banned.

Ask your current customers to go to your Yelp site and add a review when you find customers that tell you what great service they had, how much money they saved, how much they were helped by a particular employee or what a pleasant overall experience they had doing business with you.

Yelp.com is also a great way for you to see what your competition is up to, what customers are saying about them and figure out ways to do a better job than them to get more customers. Keep it legal, keep it friendly and use Yelp.com to your advantage.

Once you start to get reviews and traffic to your Yelp.com account, Yelp will send you a 'People Love Us On Yelp' window decal that you can place in your front door so that others can go to the site to check it out and also add their own review.

Yelp rocks as a way to Advertise your Business for Free and Get the Word Out!

Always read the Terms of Service with any site and Yelp.com is no exception.
(image logo of yelp.com)

Open a Merchant Circle Account

MerchantCircle.com is a website that has over 1,700,000 local business experts listed! You need to be one of those experts that customers search for. Merchant Circle is free to set up an account, list your business, what you do, what you're currently working on and one of our favorite areas is the question section. Customers ask questions and you can show your expertise by answering their question honestly and helping them. The Free version gives you plenty of information to add about your business without using the upgraded packages that cost money - we Love Free Advertising and you will too!

Merchant Circle gives you a dashboard so you can see any new messages from customers, your current coupons (oh yeah, add a coupon exclusively for your merchant circle guests), new connections and an area for your own blog if you decide to use it to create posts about any particular area of expertise and add links to your favorite articles and sites such as squidoo! Merchant Circle allows you to add a simple widget to your blog for a nice and free backlink too.

You can also connect with other local businesses and become the 'mayor of your city' by having the most connections in your area.

Merchant Circle has approximately 15-20 business categories sure to fit your type of business.

Apparently, Google also likes Merchant Circle as our own business listings with them are on the front page of Google for certain search terms.

Get your Merchant Circle account opened and started today!

Free Advertising for your Business with FourSquare

FourSquare is a newer website that began in 2009 that is gaining huge attention from customers and is Free Advertising for your business! Over 20 million users sign in and visit foursquare daily. If you're not on Foursquare, you're missing a lot of action! Customers 'check in' when they reach a certain business, can become the 'mayor of a business' with the most check ins, can add their current connections on facebook, twitter or email contacts. Customers also add 'tips' about a certain business and can earn badges.

For free advertising for business, foursquare allows you to quickly set up an account, offer your customers a special deal or discount item when they check in to your place of business (if you want to, it's not mandatory), it helps you keep your loyal customers coming back often and you get to learn more about your customers, what they like and want.

Customers use their smart phones to log in and announce to their friends where they are, what they're doing or buying and it's often an invitation to join them wherever they are.

Get a Free Business Listing and Free Advertising with FourSquare today!
(image logo of foursquare.com)

We hope you'll try some or all of these ideas to help you get the word out about your restaurant. Just spend a few minutes each day on your computer and post what's happening with your staff, menu, any events, specials and banquet facilities. You'll be glad you did.

We'd love to hear your comments on what you liked best here and what you'll do first!