Advertising

adam7436

Hello all,

I have recently set up a recruitment business in Kent however I find it ever increasing to keep up an advertising presence because of the expense. Does anyone have any ingenuous 'cheap' ideas that they have found to be effective?

I'm sure I won't be the the only one benefiting.

Many thanks,

lincroft1710

A typo I think, "ingenuous" means frank or candid, you probably meant to type "ingenious".

pinkclouds

It depends who you are targeting, surely? And "cheap" means different things to different people.

If you were, for example, hiring/placing local graduates, you could get some t-shirts printed with your website URL and something like "talk to us for a job" and give them to final year undergrads at your local university. Students always want free clothes and you'd have a bunch of cheap walking adverts being read by lots of soon-to-be new graduates.

Maybe you are just spreading yourself too thin and focusing on a more specific goal might help keep the costs down?

Horace

Look for membership free networking groups where you either pay for your breakfast or lunch (The BNIs of this world insist that you attend each week and you have to make referrals and pay a huge fee, 4Networking.biz has a free forum but you are actively encouraged to join and attend breakfasts at £10 a time but membership can be steep when you are starting out). Also you could try Business Biscotti which tends to have a drop in session and this is essentially free, you may have to pay for coffee. That way you get yourself in front of businesses who may have a use for a recruitment agency.

Also get yourself into LinkedIn, link up with people, join groups related to your industry, see if there is a group for your area for instance where I live there is a group called Brummies and we meet once a month to share knowledge and generally support each other.

Use twitter to tweet about your business, have a fan page on Facebook. Have a blog on your website, give some pointers on how to recruit staff, changes in employment legislation and stuff like that. Ping this out to other search engines, also google will pick up on your blog especially if you add tags and update it regularly - you get more hits and hopefully more enquiries - you have to make it easy for people to contact you.

A paid advertisement in a magazine or newspaper doesn't work really and all you have done is chuck money down the drain. You can have a basic account on LinkedIn for free, I look at my connections' connections to see if there is anyone that I want to be introduced to and then I ask for an introduction.

Since I ditched the paid adverts in magazines and started networking, my business has picked up, now I look at the no membership fee networking events because I want the best return on my investment.

adam7436

I'm finding more and more that paid adverts in newspapers and magazine are just not as effect. It is becoming harder to stand out from the crowd on the internet so I too think the best way is to network at breakfast meetings, Twitter and other networking sites.

What is other peoples experiences from breakfast meetings?

Horace

I have been going to breakfast meetings since I started my business in 2009, at first it was slow going especially as I was trying to promote a wedding planning business to a bunch of businesses, I rebranded this year and since then things have been going from strength to strength.

Last year, I found a copywriter who then wrote the text for my original website (some of his work can still be seen on my new site), a voiceover artist recorded the voicemail message on my phone and a podcast for my website. One guy, I met wanted me to organise workshops for him on a profit share basis, another one invited me to more networking events and now I am a member of a business club that meets at night - this same guy hosts my website, has helped me tremendously with my site and shares his knowledge with me plus I have regular money coming in because I visit his office 2 days a week for 4hrs (total 8hrs) to do admin work. I know that he has just started an enormous project to increase his own profitability but I know that I have input into that and will be learning and acquiring knowledge for myself at the same time.

As I have done more networking, I have had more enquiries and I am getting more work. Some of my clients want me to organise networking events for them so it shows how popular they are.

There is a way of getting some free advertising by using Twitter - start following @TheoPaphitis (yes it is he from Dragon's Den) and on Sundays between 5.30pm and 7.30pm you need to send him a tweet with the hashtag #sbs and your details and he will pick a few to retweet thus you reach a wider audience if you are one of the lucky ones.

The way to stand out from the crowd on the internet is to have a blog but don't just blog about recruitment, talk about your personal life, share thoughts and ideas and maybe talk about office furniture and stationery - it may sound wierd but people in offices read blogs and they search for office furniture and stationery on the internet (you could monetize your site too by having some ads on there - I use buy.at for affiliate links but there are many others on the Net) so they are tempted into clicking a link to buy and then they remember that they may need staff and will think of you.

XxXfashionqueenXxX

Newspaper articles. Websites etc.

Mattty

Longer term strategy, but sign up to the Freeindex business directory and build up customer referrals. It's taken me a couple of years, but when people do a search for the type of products my business offers in my area. My Freeindex page comes up on the first page of google.