How do you advertise your freelance work offline? I've not done any of this, but I would like to start now. I think mailings or newspaper ads would work. However I don't have a ton of money to waste on it, and I'd like to do something that will at least pay me back what I spend to advertise. Thanks!!
Networking first. In my area, there is the Chamber of Commerce and BNI. At these meetings, look for others in the business. Agency owners, copywriters, photographers. Ad sales people also are a wealth of information. Those agencies who do branding, marketing, advertising, collateral. From there, you will start to develop a plan. You can also look for seminars through these groups. At those seminars, you will meet others who are like minded. Craigslist. Put up a small business ad.
Networking is a great marketing tool, but it could take some time to develope enough contacts to get steady business. It should be part of your arsenal, but not your sole weapon. Mailers can get expensive. Generally a 2% to 4% response rate is considered good. If you mail 1000 pieces, that could get expensive. Again, this is a GREAT weapon, but you need to have money for advertising before instituting this method of advertising. You might send out 3000 mailers and not get one response. I would start the cheap, yet very affective way of marketing yourself. Create a one page flyer in black and white. Make it visually appealing with you services and slogans. Once you have this flyer completed, make 100 copies. This should cost you about $10. Dress up kinda nice, get your flyers and put them in a nice folder or something, and drive to an area that has alot of businesses. Walk in a business. Hand the flyer to the person at the counter or front and say "I just wanted to drop this by, Thanks." and walk out. Go to the next business and repeat. Repeat over and over until you have given out all 100 flyers. Notice there was no sales pitch? That is because very few people would listen to your sales pitch. People hate salespeople. You werent a salesperson, you were some one with some really valuable information who was considerate of the business owners time. If they want your service, they will call or visit your website. This may seem stupid if you have never tried it, but trust me...It works. I did this when I sold insurance...it was MONEY! Try it and let us know how it works!
You could always "team up" with someone that compliments your business. For example, a photographer, graphic designer or a SEO specialist in your case. You can then pass work through each other and deliver a high-quality service between you and each other's customers. Referrals will come from it and the "snow-ball" effect. You can meet these guys through networking or going through yell and contacting the local ones. Best of luck.
You have to be careful with this method. Once an intersection accumilates enough signs, some cities will pull them; call the phone numbers on them; then fine the businesses that placed the signs. You might have noticed this before. An intersection will have a couple of signs. Then there will be so many signs you cant make sense of it. Then there will be no signs. Some of the fines are around $200 per sign and more for each sign you put up