'Rule of Thumb' is your advertising budget should be 25% of your revenues. However, for a start-up small business, this may not be practical.

The first rule about advertising is to plan to keep up your advertising for at least six months. The reason for this is that people need to see your ad at least 4 times before they cognate it is there. And, the longer the ad repeats over time, the more trustworthy the advertiser and the more people are likely to seek out that company to do business.

I find that when I advertise I do not get people flocking to my phone to hire me, but I do get lots of job applications and sales people trying to sell me things.

Sometimes traditional advertising is not the answer to promoting your business. I have recently been working with a start-up that runs street teams. In this case the teams are 'signwalkers' - walking around in sandwich boards proclaiming GOING OUT OF BUSINESS and BIG SALE in front of stores. This is extremely effective advertising! I was amazed. You can expect to spend $80 to $100/person plus the cost of the signs & etc. [the signwalker gets $8/hr].

Networking is the best way I have found to advertise my start-up consulting business. These days people are not so easily influenced by advertising so you have to demonstrate your skills and attract potential business.



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It depends on the industry your business is in, and percentage matters more than dollar amount.
In the first year, consumer goods companies might spend as much as half of their net sales on marketing, then stabilize to 8 to 10 percent of sales within a few years.

It depends on the business, but you want to spend enough on marketing to be known. Because it is a new company people don't know you exist so you HAVE to get the word out. If you can find free ways to do this then good, but you probably won't be able to. You will probably want to spend a good amount (at least 10%) on marketing.

Well there's no specific number as I don't know your income, investment, business plan.

But for a first year business, the main thing to do is make sure your business is running perfectly. You don't want to market a flawed business. Once everything is set up and running soothingly, than you can start marketing. Google AdWords is an excellent way to market a business (if you use the customizable marketing settings to your advantage of course).

This is a tough question, because it really depends on the industry. I run a service providing company and our main marketing expenses are convention travel, website and "sweat" equity.

My clients are usually company marketing and brand managers, so industry and networking events are important.

My best recommendation is to spend as little money as possible initially and try to use free sources of marketing. There are so many ways now to get free press coverage online and offline that you can stretch your marketing dollar a long way.

I know this does not totally answer your question, but I thought it would be helpful.

Depends on your gross annual sales. If you project that you'll make around 200,000 your first year in gross sales, then it wouldn't be unreasonable to spend up to 10% or 20k on advertising. But only if you expect a reasonable turnaround on advertising revenue. I would plot out a projected profit/loss statement and see where it puts you. For a new business, in this economy, it's harder than ever to try to project where you'll be. So be reasonable, and don't go overboard. Try to utilize as many free sources of advertising as you can, such as SEO and blog/viral marketing.

I can give you some more tips if you want, just go to my profile and ask a direct question.