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

chanie wrote: »

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.

Chanie you are so kind to share this. Honestly I am so touched:)

I particularly like the idea of doing different shots of dressing the space.
Do you know what the power of the check in is? I have always wondered. Anyway sorry to turn MSE into a Q&A zone! So grateful for your time.:)

boxofpaws wrote: »

I'm so glad there are awesome people on here like chanie who can offer you actual practical advice because I am totally useless but please know I am cheering you on:T

Cheer leading also highly appreciated Paws:T

Good morning All

Time to get back on the daily updates properly. It's a bit of a funny day as my son hurt himself yesterday so he's off. Nothing serious but it needs to be rested. I was planning to shop today but we will have to style it out till OH gets home tonight. I was doing use it up fridge dives two days ago so todays menu will be interesting

Wealth

* Had an excellent week on the food shopping front, only spending £59.68 compared to £70 on a normal week. This was due to bringing home a lot of useful food from an event, which had been costed within the event budget so basically fed us with fresh food supplements, for a week. A couple of things we did that seem to work for us, home made soup made on the days OH works from home, then having that for dinner one night too so saving a 'proper' meal being bought. We also had pancakes for breakfast one morning which saved bread being bought quite so quickly. There's an interesting thread in OS on all of this. What we class as a meal these days is much fancier than it used to be. A meal can be a boiled egg and toast. Applying this frugal mindset to your meal plan can shave ££s. Definitely something I'm considering.

* We are now 1 week from payday. I transferred the first amount of money out of my business account to us today (officially) £100. I did transfer £50 last week but that was to pay us back for some items I'd bought on our account. I'm hoping that £100 will last us now for food/travel till next Monday. I will need to transfer £93 on Friday as well because our gas/elec bill is due. But that means our household finances will have held up all month barring that tiny contribution. I used to have to pay £500 a month over to us or things didn't balance. So I think this is a sign that our discretionary spending is almost zero these days. And because OH works from home so much these days we are saving a lot of money there. Plus me doing better on grocery spends. All this is a good thing to know, as if I have to find another job, I think I'd struggle NOT to earn that much even doing a few shifts on a check out.

* We have managed to save all of the £100 switching bonus and £140 council tax free month. So that is sitting ready for debt repayment or emergency bill paying.

* Today should be a NSD as I'd guess we aren't going out anywhere. We did go in the garden earlier despite the rain as I found DD with her head sticking out of the cat flap looking longingly at the garden toys, so after a mexican standoff regarding her putting her coat on, out we went.

* I will save money today on not travelling to and from school too.

* Yesterday we went to the venue, OH and I and he did the measurements needed for our rate appeal. I have now sent off the sketched floor plan they asked for and supporting photos. We had until the end of March to get that done so now we just wait....

* Am carrying on with pushing as hard as I can on marketing, and it's been amazing having so much support here with suggestions. Thanks again.

Health

* Other than DS small injury we are all ok. I'm so glad I'm not doing late lock ups much this week. Only one late.

Organisation

* I tidied up the contacts on my outlook this morning. Which was mega dull. But when I had my phone stolen late last year, and lost all my contacts, outlook had a very out of date copy that it backed up to my phone. You can't delete the contacts locally, so I'd been meaning to find the time for ages. It feels nice not to have contacts like a plasterer I used 10 years ago cluttering up my phone now when I scroll through. A digital detox if you will.

* Have checked banking on both sides. All as expected. Updated cash flow forecast.

* I need to sort out security on my new business account. I have been very slow on moving things there especially considering it will save me money.

Anyway, think that's all for today. Have a good one all.

Bob