Many times a small business owner draws a blank determining how to spend their advertising budget. They often have never bought ads before, have a small budget to work with, and don't even have a clue as to what's available to them.

The fact is advertising is essential for a business to thrive, and for small businesses there are many more options than you might imagine.

Let' acquaint you with some of these, and why they could be a good source of leads for your business. Try these advertising options for small businesses this 2015.

Related: The 9 Best Things About Display Advertising

7 Places to spend your small business ad budget

Newspaper and Magazine Ads – While not the most economical type of advertising. A well-placed local ad can still be a lead generator even at a cost of $20-32 per 1000 people reached. These are however, highly targeted leads.

Cable television ads – Costing around $8 per 1000 people reached, if you have a product or service that would lend itself to being showcased in a more visual fashion, this could be for you.

Radio interviews or ads – This one comes in at about $7 per 1000 people reached, and might be a viable option, particularly if you can interview or be interviewed by a popular local host or personality.

Related: Does Online Advertising Work?

Facebook Advertising – A terrific bargain at roughly $0.25 per 1000 people reached, Facebook ads can give your business a reach that it wouldn't be able to generate otherwise.

Your Email list – Alert your customer email list to new products, promotions, sales and any other events that can get their interest. It is far, far easier to sell to a customer you've already sold to than to create a new sale.

Local online ads – An economical way to generate local leads is by advertising on local business directories and on local sites that get a lot of traffic. These are easy to find in your local area.

Try Search Marketing – Probably the path of least appeal when it comes to small business owners, as they may not know enough about it. However, this fact may change their minds: Outbound leads such as print ads or direct mail convert at a rate of 1.7%, whereas search marketing leads come in at a robust 14.6%! Is that enough to help allay some fears?

Photo Credit: IBoomMedia/Flickr

One great thing about Facebook advertising is that it’s so easy, anybody can do it. Unfortunately, not everybody who uses Facebook advertising gain the same huge benefits. And if you’re wondering what is it that makes others win big at Facebook advertising and why others don’t, here are some of the important things you should know.

Facebook Advertising Strategy

1. Test your ads.

As in any type of advertising, testing your ad is important in order to see what really works. An ad may acquire plenty of impressions but no click throughs, while another ad may obtain many click throughs but no conversions. By testing your ads you’ll discover the right message, the right image, and the right price that will maximize the efficiency of your ads. When testing your ads, it is important to slow down. Change one element at a time on your ad up until you feel it has already reached its maximum level of performance. If you go and try to change everything all at the same time, you might not be able to find out what’s actually working.

2. Use Cost per Impression (CPM) first.

While it’s quite tempting to use cost per click ads (in which you’ll only pay when someone clicks on your ad), this is not always the best place to start. With CPM, you‘ll be able to test your ad more effectively over a wider range of users. If you start with CPM campaign first, you can test your ads and find out which ads perform well and which give you the lowest return. Although some people might tell you that CPC is the way to go as this is the model we’re familiar with in Google Adwords, you shouldn’t believe them. When you’ve already tested your ads and know which works, that’s the only time you should switch to CPC as you already know how much budget to put in your advertising campaign.

3. Test at various times.

Different ads perform differently at different times of the day, and even on different days of the week. For this reason experts advise that you test your ads at various times of the day and during various days of the week to find out what ad performs best and when.

4. Refresh your ads on a regular basis.

When you’ve already discovered your best performing ad, there’s a tendency to keep it forever. You shouldn’t. Studies show that a Facebook ad has an average lifespan (the time when users start snubbing it) of around one week. Have a good supply of ads (that you’ve tested and proven) which you can interchange to keep your ads always fresh.

5. Keep your followers on Facebook.

Many advertisers commit one grave mistake with Facebook advertising, and that is driving people directly to their website or blog. The problem is that most Facebook users feel much safer on this site and want to stay in their comfort zone. If you’re wise, you wouldn’t want to interfere with this loyalty factor. So instead of directly driving them away from Facebook, just drive them to a tab on your business page, where you can motivate them to like your page or get their information to add to a mailing list. Only when they’re at ease with you should you send them away from Facebook.

6. Measure your results.

As in any advertising strategy, it is important to measure the results of your Facebook ads. Good thing Facebook has its own tools that you can use for this purpose. In addition, you can also use Google Analytics to evaluate what Facebook users actually do after they visit your website. Only then will you know whether your Facebook advertising is working or not.

So these are the elements of the winners’ game plan with their ads at Facebook. Are you ready to be a winner as well? If you're not sure, please contact us if you need help in Facebook marketing.