Advertising

[Aradia]

Hey fishy friends,
I was wondering how you go about advertising yourself for children's parties and events like that. I mean, how do I reach that type of audience?
Thanks!

[Spindrift]

Word of mouth is probably one of the most effective. Do you have any friends who have kids? Maybe they have a birthday coming up?
Doing a public appearance (meet & greet) at a mall with some business cards maybe?

[Ayla of Duluth]

When I start advertising myself I'm planning on bringing business cards down to the beach so I can lay in my tail and if people want to know more about me, I can give them a business card. Lots of people will be able to see me, and I'll get publicity that way. And of course, the internet is a valuable tool too. Facebook and your own personal website with tons of information about you is a great way for people to find out about your business.
These are going to be my main ways of advertising because I'm planning on having my "mersona" (lol) not talk. I find it helps keep the magic when the character is mysterious like that. I was inspired by Twig the fairy, and I think it'll really help me be kid friendly, because a lot of the time I'm really bad with talking to kids. My vocabulary has been suprisingly complex for my age and I find it difficult to say things that kids will understand. So finding some other way to communicate was a great idea for me. sorry, that kind of got off topic.

[Sea Pearl]

I think facebook would defiantly be a good starting point for advertising. And if you have Photoshop or something maybe you could make flyers and distribute them. Places like Hobby Lobby or Party City have message boards near the entrances where people can put posters and flyers to advertise their businesses and events, and there always seems to be parents taking their kids into those places. It's all about being creative!

[Ayla of Duluth]

You can put flyers and such in motel lobbies too. That way you can let people who are visiting your city know about you. I had to put flyers for my summer job in all the motels around the area. We really got a lot of tourists from that. And it's fun to learn about other places you've never been to.

[Mermaid Momo]

i'd suggest the same thing everyone else is saying. don't forget to make your personal website interesting so people will want to look around on it. (if you can't afford to pay for a website ,i suggest a weebly.they have tons of customization options.) and i would be more than happy to help with any fliers or graphics you may need.

[Mermaid Sirena]

Do not do a wix for the love of all that is good and holy in life do not do wix. There are so many better platforms out there then them. Might I suggest a combination of Flavors.me & flickr. It's what I'm use for one of my sites.

[ShyMer]

You can create a website through google as well and it's free. My hubby uses it for displaying various projects of his and it works pretty well. They have templates and such to use.

I don't know about where you are, but in my hometown they have something called Frederick's Child- it's a monthly newsletter/magazine thing where there's all sorts of ads and articles that people share services and events in the community. I find it in a lot of different places around town, and I think it's free. Something like that might be useful for you to advertise in, if there's something similar near you.

[Mermaid Saphira]

Do not do a wix for the love of all that is good and holy in life do not do wix. There are so many better platforms out there then them. Might I suggest a combination of Flavors.me & flickr. It's what I'm use for one of my sites.

No wix?? Might I ask y?

[Mermaid Sirena]

Lets just say I really hate wix and every time I see it used I cringe and die a little inside, especially when I see it used by fellow designers.

On solid reason though is that even on several different computers with several different internet connections I always encounter the annoying circle of 'I'm loading this now' for every single element of the page and it lasts longer then it should. Every. Single. Element. Backgrounds, text, images, icons, contact forms, scroll bars... everything.

I think it's a terrible service that talks a lot but doesn't live up to it in nearly half the way's it claims. I tried to use it once, was going to go full out to, going to use it to make my personal website for mermaiding and Graphic Design, I couldn't do anything that i wanted to do and it didn't have any options I needed. Believe me I wasn't trying to do anything fancy, I just wanted a site that worked and looked like someone with half a eyes worth of vision put it together.

[Mermaid Saphira]

^ I am sorry this happened to you It's never taken that long for it to load..and that was when I was using a 12 yr old computer X_X so ah..for ur sake NO WIX! lol

[Spindrift]

Lets just say I really hate wix and every time I see it used I cringe and die a little inside, especially when I see it used by fellow designers.

Haha. Wix is the worst. I've only ever seen one site ever that I thought worked well on that platform. It's horrible, it's amateur-ish, and it's weak. I'm a professional web designer and I am not sure if I could ever respect a "professional" of any sort who uses Wix unless they had a very good reason. It's fine for middle/high school student projects/not so serious web-users and stuff like that though.

And by fine I mean that I understand why it's being used in those situations, not that it's respectable (it's not).

[Sitre Seer Moroaica]

BILBOARD!!!! For those who cant afford it XD