is this a good idea?

teenee60

we own a shop in a smallish town, Bolsover,we have had this local businessman come up with this idea; all the community of shops have a video (done by him,on his phone),saying what we sell etc,this is all linked together on a website,called planet bolsover,he says anyone visiting,or local people want to know what we sell can look on there.
cost £195.
My concern is if tourist are coming to bolsover to see what else is there,would they google bolsover? they dont know to put "planet" in front,it doesnt come up if you just type bolsover.
He says he is trying to get the council on board.
i dont see where it can go.

as i'm typing it it sounds even worse!

motorguy

teenee60 wrote: »

we own a shop in a smallish town, Bolsover,we have had this local businessman come up with this idea; all the community of shops have a video (done by him,on his phone),saying what we sell etc,this is all linked together on a website,called planet bolsover,he says anyone visiting,or local people want to know what we sell can look on there.
cost £195.
My concern is if tourist are coming to bolsover to see what else is there,would they google bolsover? they dont know to put "planet" in front,it doesnt come up if you just type bolsover.
He says he is trying to get the council on board.
i dont see where it can go.

as i'm typing it it sounds even worse!

Sounds like what is done by 'the best of' - heres the one for my local town..

http://www.thebestof.co.uk/local/craigavon/business-guide

Never really took off. Oh, and its not his "idea" its been tried many times before.

I'd avoid it personally.

FatVonD

£195 for a video done on his phone?? He's having a laugh!

teenee60

Thanks Paul,i think was typing it i knew it sounded lame.
sometimes things look clearer that way.

I can buy a fair amount of stock with £195

paddyrg

Yep, even if well promoted, and more than 5 shops stumped up the cash, who are you advertising to? Tourists probably don't care that much if the hardware shop is run by Dave or Keith, and probably have not much interest beyond 'oh right they have a corner shop for milk'.

£195 is not outrageous considering he may get 3 signups and be trying to 'do' the whole sight for under £600, but it sounds like a lemon to me.

kirasia

teenee60 wrote: »

we own a shop in a smallish town, Bolsover,we have had this local businessman come up with this idea; all the community of shops have a video (done by him,on his phone),saying what we sell etc,this is all linked together on a website,called planet bolsover,he says anyone visiting,or local people want to know what we sell can look on there.
cost £195.
My concern is if tourist are coming to bolsover to see what else is there,would they google bolsover? they dont know to put "planet" in front,it doesnt come up if you just type bolsover.
He says he is trying to get the council on board.
i dont see where it can go.

as i'm typing it it sounds even worse!

You could actually buy your own domain and hosting with that money and have a little website designed for yourself (and make your own video if you felt the need..!) I'd say definitely not worth it!

paulwf

You could always do a video on your phone and post it on youtube to see how it goes...zero cost.

There is no point in even considering paid for advertising until you have covered all the bases of online marketing yourself i.e. facebook, twitter and your own website as online marketing is most cost effective when you can use it to drive traffic to your sites. Even then I'm not sure if customers would want a video, they just want to *quickly* check location, opening hours and that sort of thing.

I get asked to advertise in various directory type magazines all the time, at the end of the day how many are going to convert into cold hard sales? Probably very little unless the publication is heavily targeted at your audience.

paulwf

I've now had a proper look at the site (internet was flaky the other day). I understand the concept of getting all the small businesses in the area together on one site, this is the sort of thing a lot of community spirited locals were doing on the web a decade ago. Some effort has gone into writing the copy, the video is ok but it is just a 40 second clip on youtube so nothing to get excited about. My concern with the site is the content such as special offers and opening hours can date very quickly which is why I'd prefer my own site to have control of this.

The main problem with the site is it doesn't have any content to draw people in, it is just a listings site using a template. It is the sort of thing that would be fine if all the traders got together and put in £10 or £20 each but I can't see a return on investment at £195.

pitkin2020

Total waste of money, like others have said you could produce your own site with a video for that money and draw people just to your business. If tourists are looking for things to do in a town its usually activities they are interested in not that the town has a newsagents and building merchant.

The other thing is the cost, £195 for a decent set of pictures or a videographer would be cheap but for someone to take the video on a mobile phone which probably won't even be edited is ludicrous, and the worse thing is you were even considering it.

Having just looked at this website I would definitely say save your money and invest it into your business in the form of new signage maybe. Whilst the site isn't bad its just not very good at what its supposed to be doing, its more of a directory for people who are aware of Bolsover rather than the tourism trade. Seriously who when looking for activities is going to be interested in where to buy a neptune bath seat??

As a website for local people its not bad you can see what shops are in your town etc but for tourists they won't stay on the site for more than 15 secs as there is nothing there that yell.com doesn't offer. There is no information on local attractions, what to do, parking etc. Even the videos are very poor quality and the sound is too low, not mention that some of the shop keepers pitch is likely to turn people off rather than encourage them in!!

Claytone

Try Google Places. I think it's free and it's the service I use to find small businesses. If I wanted to find a bookstore in Bolsover, I'd type Bolsover books into Google Maps and see what came up. (What comes up are various Google Place pages.) If you have a nice Google place page with pictures and reviews and a description, I'm much more likely to come to your store.

Much more effective and cheaper than this video idea.

Hermia

Frankyt wrote: »

Would be easier to set yourself up with a free blog from blogger, then you could put photos and information on there.

I agree. There is a little craft shop in my town and the owner has set up a blog. If you google the name of the town and 'craft shops' her blog comes up fairly high on the list. It's great because she does a little post each week listing new items that have come in or announcing any special offers.