Budget Wars - A New Hope (with apologies to George Lucas)

greent · 17 March 2017 at 9:51PM

chanie wrote: »

I don't know the nature of the your venue, but I've struggled to find halls for hire for my children's birthday parties. When I've googled, I get lots of random websites, with no prices etc. It seems to be fine if you know of a hall, but if not, they seem to be difficult to find. Could you contact local schools and ask them to put a poster for you?

Try partnering with organisations to co-run events? E.g. the bring the people and you provide the venue? It could be a way to attract new clients.

Assuming you hire out to kids events - as well as local schools and preschools - NCT nearly new sales? - flyers/ business cards in goody bags cost about £15 here and hit the parent market nicely - from birth to secondary age in this area (might be different in yours?) Things like Tesc0 and Sains will put up adverts on their 'families' board here, too.
x

Bobarella · 17 March 2017 at 10:14PM

Thank you all so much for your amazing thoughts and ideas. I'm just literally running out the door again, but will reply to everyone properly.

Bobarella · 18 March 2017 at 3:18PM

NoOneAround wrote: »

" I can and I will!" she said.

NOA
x

Ooo is that a quote NOA or just words of wisdom? Either way it's good

FacelessNumber wrote: »

Good luck Bob! You can definitely do this, and if you eventually decide not to continue the business, you will know you have done everything you can! Fingers crossed for you on both counts, the rates and the new business!

Thanks so much FN appreciate that

apple_muncher wrote: »

Bob the hustler! Go girl x

Thanks Apple why do I have ' she works hard for the money' in my mental jukebox now :rotfl:

Bobarella · 18 March 2017 at 3:25PM

kirtsypoos wrote: »

Lovely to see you're back to your usual positive self Bob - I truly don't know how you manage it but here's to facebook marketing getting numerous new bookings for you

Thanks Kirsty. :T

crazy_cat_lady wrote: »

Bob - I have a friend who does a load of social media marketing as part of her business. Let me know if you want me to put you in touch with her. x

Yes please do DM me her details Cat, that's great

chanie wrote: »

I don't know the nature of the your venue, but I've struggled to find halls for hire for my children's birthday parties. When I've googled, I get lots of random websites, with no prices etc. It seems to be fine if you know of a hall, but if not, they seem to be difficult to find. Could you contact local schools and ask them to put a poster for you?

Try partnering with organisations to co-run events? E.g. they bring the people and you provide the venue? It could be a way to attract new clients.

That is very interesting Chanie we are listed on an events venue website and it seems to have very good listings in search engines. The enquiries I get through that account for around 50% of my traffic. So that is working for us. But you've made me wonder if a website would be worthwhile. I am heavily active on the three main platforms and fb is pretty much a website itself for free so again not sure whether to do that.

I do put out a lot of flyers already in local areas. But maybe I should target some schools more heavily.

The idea about partnering is a good one and I do already have someone in mind, that I sort of started with in the winter but then events overtook me.

Thanks Chanie, certainly a lot to ponder over

you should charge

Bobarella · 18 March 2017 at 3:29PM

f0xh0les wrote: »

Great you are being so positive. Go get em!

Runs up the steps in a Rocky fashion!!!

greent wrote: »

Assuming you hire out to kids events - as well as local schools and preschools - NCT nearly new sales? - flyers/ business cards in goody bags cost about £15 here and hit the parent market nicely - from birth to secondary age in this area (might be different in yours?) Things like Tesc0 and Sains will put up adverts on their 'families' board here, too.
x

Thanks Greent I think we might 'just' be too small for NCT sales. Round here they are very popular, and tend to need church hall type size/community centres.

Again I feel lazy because I had considered marketing direct into our local upmarket nursery (I'm only making that distinction due to disposable income indicator's) but having dropped them an email they ignored me.
That said I've seen so many parents grumbling about barely getting a reply about enquiries for a place at a nursery so maybe my sales pitch was a bit weak and I should look to be talking with the manager directly?

I will revisit the notices I had up at the local supermarkets definitely. Again thanks for all the suggestions.

Bobarella · 19 March 2017 at 9:17AM

Morning Everyone

Well today should be a good day. First Sunday off in 7 weeks (well almost off, not officially working but have to go over to do some measuring and a viewing later, but 99% off.

This week has been busy. Three separate events. Three late nights. 5 enquiries since Friday. Money dribbling in from new business & this weeks events. One rebooking straight away which is lovely. I now have bookings into June.
Apart from that I have done quite a lot of promotion on fb and the local forum, and followed up again with a local events company (thanks again for that suggestion Chanie)

Time to shift soon, pancakes won't make themselves

Bob

[Deleted User] · 19 March 2017 at 9:24AM

Morning Bob,

Lovely to see you positive again and I'm sure things will pick up with all the bits and bobs you've been doing.

Have a great day today xx

Macey1510 · 19 March 2017 at 11:27AM

Hi Bob, hope its all going well...we often have information and stories about small businesses in our weekly free paper...I don't know if you have something like that in your area?

sashybo · 19 March 2017 at 11:38AM

Enjoy your almost off Sunday Bob.:) Pancakes sound good. :j

chanie · 19 March 2017 at 5:14PM

I recently attended a short seminar and it occurred to me that the principles could help your business.

inbound content marketing is about putting the right information out there in the right way and at the right time. The Tutor gave the example of receiving an email from Amazon saying that their favourite author had a new book out. So, the information was useful and relevant.

Inbound content marketing produces significantly more leads than traditional forms of marketing like cold calling and ads in the local press.

The power of purchasing has moved from the seller to the buyer so consumers are can afford to be picky and companies are fighting for our attention.

The most powerful form of marketing is word of mouth and consumers are purchasing based on personal recommendations, not fancy adverts.

In terms of your business:
Get a Facebook page for your business if you don't have one. Make sure you have good pictures and prices. A pet peeve of mine is not knowing how much a venue costs e.g. it could be £50 or £500 for all I know!!!

Ask all of your friends and family to 'like' your page and this should show up on their feeds.

When you hire out your venue, bribe your customers to do one of the folllowing:
1) let you take photos of their event and post them to your Facebook page
2) ask them to 'check in' on Facebook to your venue.
3) ask them to post a comment on your Facebook page
4) link your venue to their event e.g. if they have a children's party and are posting photos, to link your venue.

Give them say £10 off hire, or huge tub of sweets for children's parties or tea and coffee for meetings for doing one of the above. My local beautician offered £10 off treatments if I 'liked' their Facebook page.

You could then periodically post relevant content e.g. ' do you need a venue for your child's party .... take a look at how you can transform xxxxx venue' along with pictures of the decorations'. Or, post something like 'happy Easter, if you are thinking of having a party, consider xxx venue' Possibly add some tips about how to have a fab party.

Anyway, I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I've been thinking about how I could use the principles of inbound content marketing for my job. I thought this could help put you on the right track for your business.

Budget Wars - A New Hope (with apologies to George Lucas)

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