Most real businesses have to bite the bullet and spend some money on advertising. Many Ad networks as well as Facebook and POF have geo targeting so you can only advertise to those within driving distance, with pay per click ads you are only paying when someone demonstrates some interest.
Community newsletters and bulletin boards are a good free or low-cost way to reach a lot of local customers. Then there's social media - Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +, Facebook, but it can take time to build up a following unless you want to pay for ads.
If you're serious about growing your business, you'll need to spend some money. Let's face it, you're competing with Apple dealers and with big box resellers like Best Buy who offer maintenance and support for their products. If you're not willing to invest in your business, why bother doing it?
brand your personality ... attract peoples attention by offering value and call them to action.
Blogging would be a really strong way to make it happen.
By the way there is a way to have unlimited blogs mapped to your prefered domain name with one cost and all being controlled through a central control panel ;)
Let me know if you are interested in something like that.
post to craigslist
make a facebook fan page
yelp your service
I offer a local computer/laptop repair service at my house, and I'm trying to get more customers. I've built a program that auto-posts a new Kijiji ad every 30 minutes, but it only gets me 1-2 interested people a day. Are there other good free mediums of advertising that i could use to bring people to my in-home "business"? Thanks!
