One of the biggest concerns for businesses in this region is how best to promote their products and services. Nowadays, there are literally hundreds of ways you can promote yourself - but if your business is new and you only have a limited marketing budget, which tools are most likely to give you a good return on your investment?
Well before you start spending money, you need to consider the free options. And, as many of our readers know, the Know-it-all passport guidebook provides a wonderful opportunity for organizations in Geneva, Vaud and neighboring France to "get their name out there" for free. First published in 1999, it has become THE reference book for anything you want to know from shopping, housing and education to where to hold a birthday party, places to eat, night life, and chocolate!
What makes the book different from other guides in the region is that you have to be recommended to get a free listing in the book - so anybody buying the guide knows that organizations listed in it have been "tried and tested" by others in the region.
Likewise, the sister website, www.knowitall.ch, only promotes organizations that have been recommended to Know-it-all passport - so you can be sure that if we write an article about a newly launched company in the region, or publish an advertising banner focusing on a special promotion, then the service being offered will be of a certain quality likely to be recommended by others.
With this in mind, we wanted to give you a quick 12-point checklist of the many different ways that both Know-it-all passport and www.knowitall.ch can help you promote your business - and 10 of these are absolutely free!
The first requirement for any new business is to ask a client to recommend your product or service to us. The recommendation should be sent by email, directly from them and not forwarded by you. Once we have the recommendation, we can then offer you the opportunity to:
1) be featured in an editorial article, published on the www.knowitall.ch website, free of charge. When preparing an article, we usually ask people to submit the following information to us:
a) More information on the services you offer.
b) Some background information on yourself and your organization, including when it was set up and why.
c) More details on what makes your organization special, compared to other similar companies operating in the region.
d) Information on which customers you are trying to target.
e) Some photos to support the article, preferably in horizontal format and measuring at least 450 pixels wide.
We also ask if you would consider giving a discount to knowitall.ch readers if we did an article. This can often be very helpful in persuading clients to try out a new product or service. Competitions can also be very useful in generating extra interest.
2) submit your events and activities to the website for inclusion on our special calendars devoted to these (Events Calendar, Activities Calendar – Kids, Activities Calendar – Adults). This service is free of charge. Click here to submit your one-off event, and click here to submit regular, repeating activities.
Entrepreneurs are also recommended to visit our calendars regularly to search out business events and networking opportunities amongst the many workshops and networking events that we post there. We have a special page devoted entirely to Workshops and Seminars, but there are also other useful places to look such as the Activities Calendar – Adults, where you can search on different categories such as Networking.
3) advertise on our website, using paid banners which appear in different sections of the website. Click here for more information.
4) post a classified in the Free Classifieds section of our website. This section has been recently updated to make it easier to post personal ads, and search for ads posted by other knowitall.ch readers (which can be a problem on some of the Facebook groups used for this kind of advertising.)
5) do an Exchange Link on our website (i.e. we publish a link to your website on our Links pages, if you publish a link to our website from yours.
6) feature on some of the special page listings of our website if relevant (e.g. coaching, taxi services etc.)
7) become a guest blogger on our site. Occasionally we are looking for new bloggers in our knowitall.ch guest bloggers section, which features local experts keen to talk about topics in their field of work, and make recommendations to our readers.
8) write posts on our Facebook page . We invite readers to post their events, activities and promotions directly onto our page. Occasionally we will share links to articles and events on our website too.
9) join the LinkedIn group of Know-it-all passport, and contribute to discussions.
10) post images on our Pinterest board.
11) be listed in the next edition of Know-it-all passport, free of charge. The next edition will be published in August 2016, so you should contact Lisa Cirieco in January 2016 to discuss the content of the listing.
12) advertise in the next edition of Know-it-all passport. As above, you should contact Lisa in January 2016 to discuss the options further. You can see the current edition’s advertising rates by clicking here.
If you would like further information on any of the above promotional opportunities, please contact Jenny Jeffreys.
