Where does one start in 1998 with regards to advertising, and getting my new business out there, well the NEIS course certainly helped me with the knowledge I required, buying my 'bookbinding.com.au' domain at this time was a GREAT idea, I obtained it cheaply, $75.00 per year was a bargain, the dot com address was over tree thousand times that much. Now for learning how to get myself online and design my own web site, I did this using software called Freeway Pro, you did not need to know how code worked, you just used this software like it was a Powerpoint, drag and drop, type text then upload. Later on in the year I finally got it up online and people from all over the world then found me, customers from the Vatican to the Royal Palace to Joe Blow just down the street, yes for real!
The challenge now was not only to let the world know of my existence, but my own local and surrounding areas, how do I do this. well this is what I did. I paid $100.00 for an antique plywood caravan (they were cheap back in those days). I cut a huge shop window type hole in the sidewall of the old caravan, I framed it into four sections installed Perspex (Plexiglass) windows instead of glass, and then built in bookshelves to display my Custom Bindings and also some before and after restorations, once I found a duplicate book.
Covering this shop window was a large aluminium awning, and the side triangle bits on the side is where I had my Business info, as well as inside with a couple of business card holders with a bunch of business cards. Then I towed it to Markets around Victoria and to events that suited me the most, it was a great way of advertising, very effective and didn't cost me a lot of dollars.
Behind the books on display was a one way mirror made of Perspex, some days that I stayed I would sit on the couch inside for a little while and listen to the people talking about my work, this helped me immensely in Marketing so I knew what work was more popular and even got some great ideas from some customers.