No that's a great question.

A sign in front of your business or on the side of a caravan should be a must have, even if it doesn't have any words. For example a hanging sign of an anvil or weapon would be enough for a blacksmith, or scales for a common merchant.

But I think advertisment away from the store front should be at most a flyer on a public notice board, I doubt most towns or city's would be ok with people spamming flyers all willy nilly.

The next best thing would be making friends with local shop owners or important locals seeing if they can post a note for your business in theirs. The best option (in my biased opinion) would be to make friends with the local tavern/inn owners and have them recommend you to anyone that asks them, since that'll be the first place travellers will go.

And of course after you get settled if your goods are of high quality or you have good deals your products will sell themselves. Especially if you are the only person in town doing a specific trade.

Hi JonTargaryen and welcome to the CoE community.

The most pragmatic ways to advertise your craft of blacksmithing are the following:

• Have your signature and other decorative elements on your craft which should look iconic and therefore easily recognisable.
  [Confirmed: Crafting system]
• Make that good or excotic of a craft that people start talking about it (players) or due to high reputation and fame (NPCs that forward this information amoung each other and the players).
  [Confirmed: Gossip and reputation system]
• Join a reputable guild that might be able to recommened you to characters that ask for blacksmiths in your region This could also make bypassing travelling players aware of your shop when they know the guild from other places.
  [Confirmed: Guilds, Confirmed: Gossip system, Confirmed: Map system (marking on a map)]
• Build an inviting public place for exposition of your craft at your home. Or you join or create an organization that arranges for frequent expositions of blacksmith craft in various places with samples of various blacksmiths. Players might be attracted to those events to avoid visiting all villages and towns instead of only one larger city instead.
  [Confirmed: Rooms of your house can be made accessible to the public, Confirmed: Organizations with common goals]
• Research new methods of craftsmanship or have links with local schools/universities for an advantage over your competition [EDIT: Patents mechanic has been reworked and incorporated into a different feature set]. Make that public.
  [Confirmed: Schools and technology research]
• Ally with a widely known and reputable carpenter for all wood work that is to be incorporated to your craft. Use his name and signature on his craft to your advantage when advertising.
  [Confirmed: Component based crafting]
• Decorate your shop to look attractive to the public.
  [Confirmed: All items are persistent and stay where you drop them, even after logging out - as long as nobody else displaces them]
• Choose a good location for your shop to be easily visible on a busy road that tends to be filled with potential customers.
• Choose multiple good locations for your shops for more presense and availability.
• Include free services or free maintenance for fixed periods of time on your goods if you can afford to do so. Be public about that.
• Have a market crier or yourself on the market place praising your goods.
• Have an easily viewable big lettering or an iconic symbol on your shop entrance.
• Train lots of thankful blacksmith apprentices who some day travel to other places and can recommend your shop and craft to players in other regions.
• Have a piece of paper with advertisement made by you or a scribe placed at a notice board in town.
• Have someone place contracts that are about buying specific craft from your shop without your signature on it. When characters with that contract arrive at your shop, renegotiate the price to make sure it's up-to-date and try to sell your goods.

Good luck in your endeavours,
MoonChaser

Signs? Sounds reasonable. Should be workable.

Spamming chat channels? Should be kill-on-sight.

I like the word of mouth approaches. As for the rest...

Are we assuming characters can read?

Does elyria differ from earth's own pre industrial revolution world by having universal schooling?

Do all tribes (particularly the reclusive forest and swamp dwellers) even use written language?

It'd make for some great RP...but may make contracts hard.

(and +1 on channel spamming KoS)

People like myself (protection services, guard services, etc) will be a valuable resource. If we know where to direct people then that would give a strategic advantage to your business.

Now the key will be both finding me and enticing me to want to do that for you ;)

Posted By Hieronymus at 07:15 AM - Tue Jun 20 2017

Signs? Sounds reasonable. Should be workable.

Spamming chat channels? Should be kill-on-sight.

There's no global chat, so that solves half your issue, and spamming whatever local chat will look like could be called disturbing the peace!

TL;DR Response: Steal your rival's customers and/or provide excellent customer service (i.e. roleplay).

Employ younger player-characters to visit businesses and talk yours up, or lure customers away from a competing business. "Hey mister, you look like you don't know that blacksmith there damages blades so they break. Keeps customers coming back for repairs. You should use the one the guardsmen use." They learn useful skills like diplomacy, bluffing, etc., and you hit the competition where it hurts. Makes for a great role playing opportunity, and in games where the community is key being known as a good RPer will net you customers and attention even if your skills are slightly lower than the competition's. I'd rather have my gear repaired by someone who was going to entertain me while they did it than by a blacksmith who just did their job and moved on to the next customer.

Posted By Dorn at 08:30 AM - Tue Jun 20 2017

I like the word of mouth approaches. As for the rest...

Are we assuming characters can read?

Does elyria differ from earth's own pre industrial revolution world by having universal schooling?

Do all tribes (particularly the reclusive forest and swamp dwellers) even use written language?

It'd make for some great RP...but may make contracts hard.

(and +1 on channel spamming KoS)

Historically, the inability to read didn't prevent people from knowing who sold what. There's a reason the shorthand for a blacksmith is a forge and anvil; for any business having to do with horses to put up signs with either a horse or horseshoe on it; for weaponsmiths to have swords on their signage. There is a long-established shorthand in the real world for these things that has bled into our fantasy games and literature.

Pictographs are a graphic designer's wet dream. Think of all the symbols in your town that have no words but whose meaning is instantly understood even by tourists. The Walk/Don't Walk indicators at a crosswalk. The man and the woman in the dress for male/female restrooms (though those are changing). Go/Slow/Stop traffic lights. Lines painted on the street indicating where you can drive, turn, park, etc. These frequently say nothing but convey enough meaning to be understood and obeyed.

Yeah somewhere in the creation of civilization, people realized that there would be idiots no matter what, even if education was free. So poof. Pictographs were born.

Imagine not having pictures on restroom doors. It'd be like cats and dogs living together. Mayhem would ensue.