For many years, basic advertising vehicles included newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, and direct mail.

These communications channels allowed businesses to choose advertising methods based on their budget and need to target specific market segments. The more costly of these choices were often out of the price range of small businesses.

With the advent of the Internet, smartphones, iPods, and social networking, small businesses are able to advertise using website banners, Facebook-like buttons, texts, tweets, podcasts, and other low-cost, real-time methods.