More Wasted money on Advertising!!!!

kbh4031

To cut a long story short..

When myself and my mom set up in business (Seperatly) two years ago, we were approached by a company called Windsor Associates, who managed to get us to advertise with them in our local tesco store. Our cards were placed around the saving stamps machine. How many enquires have we had in two years??? 0.
Not one enquiry for either company in two Years:mad:

The thing that irrates me the most is before we agreed on this they said that they would be re-locating the stamp machines by the front doors so that more people would look at them. This never happened its still out of the way at the back of the store.

They have just sent me an invoice for my fifth instalment, I wont be in a hurry to pay that.

The Lesson to new people in business - DO NOT get sucked into paying for advertising because someone says it will get you work and enquires.

MORPH3US

I know this will be of no help whatsoever now, but I could have told you that before you paid out god knows how much...

Did you not take advice on this before you parted with £££?

M

kbh4031

Nope didnt get any advice or look into it before I went ahead.
Expensive lesson learnt.... Did have an enquiry today from one of the cards lol

COOLTRIKERCHICK

i have found advertising is totally hit and miss .....

we have a community mag each month in our area.... and one advert is no good.. you have to advertise for a few months so people recognise your advert......

for me the best form of advertising is marketing directly to your key/potential customers etc...... and the best one of all is word of mouth/recommendations.....

i dont know what type of business you have..but even though you have not had any new busines from this particular advert..... you have learned good lessons... no 1...dont believe any salesman......who works on commission......did you ever look at those adverts around the stamp machine before ? if you didnt loads of others dont too......

hope the cost of the advertising hasnt hit your business too hard.... is there any way of cancelling the advertisng due to mis- information due to the location of stamp machine etc....? might be worth a go.....

Simone1408

I hope you have cancelled it now

MORPH3US

In future, if you go for something like this, try and get a deal where you pay them a certain amount for every lead you receive as a result of the advert up to a certain amount.

They might not go for it, but that would say more about the amount of benefit you would get from it than what they would get from it.

M

vivatifosi

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

for me the best form of advertising is marketing directly to your key/potential customers etc...... and the best one of all is word of mouth/recommendations.....

I couldn't agree more. What line of business are you in? Perhaps we can give you some more ideas for contacting potential clients.

kbh4031

Hi all thanks for your comments. I run a UPVC maintenance & cleaning company.

Simone...cancel signed a contract to pay by instalments for two years, but it finishes next month

Kelly

ukbill69

Your better off putting money into a website and advertising on the web e.g. google adwords and microsoft adwords.

motorguy

kbh4031 wrote: »

Hi all thanks for your comments. I run a UPVC maintenance & cleaning company.

Simone...cancel signed a contract to pay by instalments for two years, but it finishes next month

Kelly

When we ran our computer business, we had a guy from the newly open tesco store ring us saying they 'wanted to help local businesses' and they were keen to 'work with the community' and did we want to advertise on their local board? I couldnt believe their cheek that they were opening up and as well as groceries selling laptops, pcs and peripherals practically on our doorstep yet wanted us to PAY to advertise on their in store board!!! :mad:

COOLTRIKERCHICK

kbh4031 wrote: »

Hi all thanks for your comments. I run a UPVC maintenance & cleaning company.

Simone...cancel signed a contract to pay by instalments for two years, but it finishes next month

Kelly

the first thing i would try and do is try and secure a contract with a local housing concortium.... or a builder doesnt matter how small.... it would be god for the business cv.....

the logic is that housing concortiums/housing assosiations own various types of buildings.... and some of them will need window cleaning/maintenance.....

builders..... especially if they are doing a new build, or extensive outside work..... will leave a mess......you could offer a 'clean up' service after the builders have finished....

here in wales there is a website that you can register with...which will tell you what work is out for tender.... within your area......

www.sell2wales.co.uk

also there is another one

www.contractshop.co.uk

they are free to register, and your business profile is there to view in the search catogories....( any bit of free advertising is good ...lol....)

also might be worth you targeting/marketing by the way of formal letter etc... to 'posh' hotels business....high end car dealerships.....shops..... which have a 'posh' front of house image......which needs to be kept clean and in good presentation order.... as part of their image...

right beeter go now ....just incase i am giving to much wrong info.......lol.....