Never think that you can get all the business through your own direct marketing strength. You never know when bad times comes. During such time your connected network is crucial for your survival.

My Pain:

How do I get customers?

How do I advertise?

How to get business?

My experience:

These are marketing ideas for small business or serviced apartments in India.

1. Website: Create your own brand and website. I strongly recommend this is the first thing that you should start off with. You just need to create a static website which would cost around Rs. 15000 for 8-10 pages.
2. Collaterals: Make visiting cards, Envelops, Letter heads, Logo & Brochure. Today Brochure may not be very important but still a small one pager colourful presentation would be a good idea to handover to the corporate when you visit. We engaged a student from Visual communications. He came out with wonderful work on our collaterals after engaging with his fellow classmates and professors. It costed us just Rs. 10,000 only.
3. Signage: Display your brand prominently if you have a Serviced Apartment in an independent building. Ensure local municipal laws of font, board size and local language on Signage is followed. Like our Service apartments in Bangalore one has to have brand name also in Kannada on top of English name and height not to exceed 1 foot in residential area. 
4. Google Local Business: When you create a Google local business account, then your business starts showing up in Google Maps and also in Organic search. This will increase the exposure of your business. This registration is free. Register now
5. Inaugurate: Keep a formal opening ceremony and invite all possible network of friends, relatives & corporate connects. It’s a very effective way of advertising.
6. Freelance Marketer: Try connecting with freelance Marketer’s who have relationship with certain corporate and can get you some business.
7. Network with other Serviced Apartment: Make relationship with other serviced apartments nearby. At times of overflow of bookings, the occupancy can be shared. I remember when I started Service apartment in Bangalore I had a network of 3 other ladies’ friends who were running service apartment in Koramangala and we used to share business amongst ourselves when overbooked.
8. OTA: Register with OTA (Online travel Agents like MMT, Yatra, Booking.com & Airbnb). Now you have a Channel Manager software like Maximojo or Reznext and you can connect your inventory to major OTA’s and one need not log into each OTA dashboard and manage inventory.
9. Search Directories listing: Register in Craig’s list, JustDial, Sulekha. I registered in a local directory Bangalore Service Apartments which was on top in google search and I remember I kept Brand starting with “A” Alcove so that my brand is listed on Top.
10. Social Media Pages: Create FB, Instagram & LinkedIn Pages and start engagement with your friend organically. You can also pay and reach out to more related audience.
11. Referrals: Take references from your friends and relatives to get a few accounts near your serviced apartments.
12. Map & Visit: Make a list of all corporates near you and plan to knock at their door. (Read more on “Is cold call visit for new prospects outdated? Think again.” in this blog post)
13. Database: I personally went to Electronic city & Bommasandra Industrial area in Bangalore. Went to their association office and got the booklet with company list with names of HR & Admin which was very helpful. It costed me just Rs 500.
14. Sponsor: Participate by taking stall in local events in your local area, sponsor a conference like TrustedStay sponsors Facilities manager workshops or HR meets in various  Cities and display their standees and offer return gifts with branding.
15. Paid Offline Advertisement: I remember Ask Laila then had come out with a one sheet ready reckoner of utility services in our area. In the event one wanted Plumbing, electrical or AC service then you could call for the service. I advertised Alcove Service Apartment and I remember I got many leads through that. I also gave a full-page advertisement in Karnataka Tourism print directory.
16. Paid online Advertisement: In Google ads you can pay per day based on the search keyword to come on top of Google search to get leads. Even Yahoo & Bing has similar paid search.
17. Caretaker: Lastly your own team of Cook, supervisors have their past connect with their guest and they can also help you get some business.
18. Email Marketing: Once you have a sizable database then you can send regular emailers. (Read more on Should small businesses do email Marketing? in this blog post)
19. SMS Marketing: Here also, once you have a sizable database then you can send SMS to your customers through Bulk SMS gateway. But you need to be careful on DND nos.
20. WhatsApp Marketing: For small list of customers database using broadcast feature in WhatsApp is very effective. Each Broadcast group size should not be greater than 256. You can form multiple broadcast groups of your customers and keep communication once a quarter. Please do not overdo.

My Conclusion:

Never put all your eggs in one basket. Many get complacent registering themselves with one or two OTA’s, but soon they will start squeezing you asking for greater discounts in lieu of business. Always ensure following mix Direct business thru your own network and contacts should be at least 50% rest can come from other channels.