What Kind of Advertising Do You Find to be the Most Effective?

[ilead]

When it comes to advertising, I prefer to use free or very low cost online services like: forums, social networks, traffic exchanges, free classifieds, etc.

It takes awhile for this kind of advertising to produce results, but it gives you the advantage of spreading your advertising throughout numerous websites all over the internet without having a sky-high advertising budget. However, what you don't spend in money, you'll usually end up spending in time.

So what kind of advertising do you prefer, and how has it worked for you?

[PhilHogan]

I'm a big fan of Facebook ads. However you have to be careful to narrow your audience or you'll pay a bundle for no targeted traffic.

Phil

[altwebdesign]

forums, most of my work comes from posting over at forums and agencys like elance.

[LingerieLady]

This is going to sound so cliche.. but word of mouth is hands down the BEST advertising for our specialty boutique..
We get new people all the time saying "my friend told me to come, she loves this place."
For this our storefront and customer service has to be top notch at all times.

Second would be our selective print ads.. mapbooks and the 5star hotel's shopping guide for tourists, local bridal magazines for brides and one local arts magazine for ladies interested in the "art of fashion".

3rd is radio ads, which i have stopped doing for the moment. Got expensive..

Word of mouth, though, is amazing!

Make friends with the other businesses in the neighborhood and refer people to eachother..
There are about 15 stores around town that have a stack of my business cards that they give to interested customers I do the same for them.. FREE and effective!