How to advertise a new business when nobody knows you exist yet

To advertise a new business in New Zealand, start before you open: put a sign on the front, claim your Google Business Profile, and tell the street and the neighbouring businesses you are coming. In the first month, collect reviews and put one advertisement where your future customers already are. In the second and third months, keep the one channel that brought people in and drop the rest. The first ninety days are about being found, not about being famous.

This is the ninety day plan in order, for a local business with a small budget and no customers yet. If you already have customers and want more, the guide to advertising for small businesses is the broader one.

Before you open

The month before you open is the cheapest advertising you will ever have, because you are a curiosity and people like a curiosity.

Put a sign on the front now. "Opening October. Physio. Book at [phone number]." Brown paper on the windows with nothing else on it is a wasted month of foot traffic. A printed banner across the front tells every person who walks past what is coming, and they will tell others.

Claim the Google Business Profile before the doors open. You can set it up with an opening date, and Google can show it as opening soon in the map results. By the time you open, the listing has been live for weeks. Fill in every field, add photos of the fit-out, and set the hours you intend to keep.

Decide the launch offer. One thing, easy to say, easy to redeem, for the first month only. First coffee free with any food. Twenty percent off the first appointment. A free quote plus a small discount on jobs booked in October. It gives people a reason to come this week instead of eventually, and "eventually" is where new businesses die.

Get the basics ready. A one page website that says what you do, where, when, how much, and how to book. A Facebook page with the same. Business cards. None of it needs to be clever, and all of it needs to exist before opening day.

The week you open

This week is about the people within walking distance, because they are the ones who can become regulars.

Tell the street. Walk into every business on your block, introduce yourself, and leave a handful of cards. The cafe will send you the customers who ask about a physio. Neighbouring businesses are the most underused advertising channel in New Zealand, and they cost a handshake.

Post in the community groups. Every town and suburb has a Facebook group, and a new local business opening is the kind of post those groups exist for. Say who you are, what you do, and what the offer is. Answer every comment. Do it once, well, rather than every day.

Put the launch offer in the window. The sign that said "opening soon" now says the offer. The people who walked past for a month wondering what you were are the ones who will come in.

Ask the first customers to tell someone. "If you know anyone who needs this, we have just opened." People like to be the one who found the new place.

The first month

The launch buzz fades after about two weeks. The first month builds the two things that keep people coming after it does: reviews, and being visible where your future customers already are.

Collect reviews in person. Ask every happy customer, at the counter or as they leave, to leave a Google review. Say it makes a big difference to a new business, because it does. Aim for ten in the first month. A new business with ten recent reviews is far more likely to appear in the map box for "near me" searches than one with none, whatever the website looks like.

Be visible where your customers already are. Before anyone knows your name, the only way to reach them is to be in front of them somewhere they already go. For a new physio, that is the gym and the sports club. For a new cafe, the businesses along the same street and the school newsletter. For a new tradie, the hardware store, the merchant, the real estate office. For a new kids' activity, the swim school, the childcare centre, the pharmacy.

We run a marketplace for local advertising space, Pritty Ghood, where local businesses list the counter, the window or the screen their customers look at, and a new business can book one for a few weeks. Listings start at about $55 a week and the price on the listing is what you pay. We keep a page for each kind of business on where its customers are and what to put in front of them, under advertising by industry. Check what is listed near you first; it is only useful if the businesses your customers visit are on it.

Or sponsor one team. A junior team at the local club costs a few hundred dollars for the season and puts your name in front of the same few hundred local families every Saturday. For a business whose customers are families, it is often the best first placement there is. The guide to sponsoring a local sports club covers how to choose and what to ask for.

Pick one placement or one sponsorship, so that when the phone rings you know where it came from.

The second and third months

By month two you have some customers, some reviews, and one paid channel running. This is where a new business either settles into a routine that works or starts spending on things that do not.

Measure the one channel. Give the placement or the sponsorship a QR code that counts scans, or a "mention this" line, or a separate phone number. At the end of month two, count. If it brought in customers, keep it and consider a second placement of the same kind. If it did not, move the money somewhere else. Eight weeks is long enough to know.

Keep the free things going. Reviews every week. A community group post when something is worth posting about. Cards with the neighbouring businesses topped up. New photos on the Google profile.

Turn first customers into regulars. A loyalty card, a "book your next appointment now" habit, a short email list. Getting a customer back costs a fraction of finding a new one, and a business with no regulars starts from zero every Monday.

Only now think about a second paid channel. If month two showed the first one working, add one more in month three. If the customers are older and local, a community paper listing. If they search at the moment of need, a small Google Ads budget aimed at your own suburb. If they are families, the school newsletter. One at a time, each measured on its own.

What not to do

Do not spend the whole budget on launch week. A big launch with balloons and a full page advertisement makes a good day one and a very quiet month two. Spread the money across the ninety days.

Do not buy a radio package before anyone has walked in. Radio builds a name over months and suits a business that already has customers. A new business needs people through the door this week, and radio does not do that.

Do not buy a huge sign nobody can measure. A billboard on the main road feels like arriving. It also costs more than a year of counter placements and cannot tell you whether a single customer came from it.

Do not run three channels at once. If three things are running in month one and the phone rings, you have no idea which one to keep paying for.

Do not go quiet after the launch. The businesses that make it past year one are still asking for reviews and still visible in month eleven.

The 90 day calendar

After ninety days you will know which channel brings people in, roughly what a new customer costs you, and whether the launch offer is worth keeping. Most businesses never work those out. See what local advertising costs in New Zealand for what to expect from each channel once you are choosing the second one.