Lately I’ve been blogging about various ways to promote your business during the holidays. Another great option to experiment with is targeted online advertising using search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Facebook. The benefit to this type of advertising is that you can easily target ads so that they are more apt to reach your target audience.

Google
Add coupons to your Google Places page and make sure any Google ads you place link to your Places page as well. Google has created a new advertising platform specifically for small, local businesses called AdWords Express that’s specifically for local businesses looking for local customers.

Yahoo and Bing
With Microsoft’s purchase of Yahoo, they have now combined their online advertising platform for small businesses. Make sure you have also claimed and populated your local business pages on both Bing and Yahoo individually.

Facebook
From your business page on Facebook you can create an advertising campaign that allows you to very specifically target other Facebook users with your ads. Because of the ability to target your ads based on specific demographic criteria, Facebook ads can be very effective and net some great exposure and new foot traffic for your business.