More Wasted money on Advertising!!!!

MORPH3US

@ COOLTRIKERCHICK....

Great advice, do you want a job?

M

COOLTRIKERCHICK

MORPH3US wrote: »

@ COOLTRIKERCHICK....

Great advice, do you want a job?

M

allways open to offers ....legal of coarse

vivatifosi

Brilliant ideas cooltrikerchick,

Another thought: does UPVC have a maintenance cycle? If so, I'd look to see when houses were built and go back to the ones say ten years on (if that's the timing for example) and address the house owners with your services. Similarly with conservatories, go to the library and look back through the planning apps in the local papers and see who applied the relevant time ago.

I've used this technique in other industries and virtually nobody else does it, giving you a clear run up at the right time. You have good information about your potential clients that your competitors don't. And as a homeowner, if I can save money by maintaining my UPVC and having small issues put right, rather than running to the expense of whole new windows, I'd be pleased as punch.

kbh4031

Some great ideas to look into thanks very much guys, you have brightened up my week . Will let you know how i get on x

Drag-Den

Hi,

I've found this thread really interesting as myself and a friend are in the process of setting up our own business offering educational services (launches in 5 weeks!). I've been looking at potential marketing strategies and the usual local newspapers, magazines, yellow pages etc but wondered if there are any other options i've not thought of? My business partner is concentrating on promotion through his contacts in local education with a view to placing leaflets/business cards etc for a more direct form of marketing.

So if anyone has any experience of any of the above forms of advertising or some other suggestions they would be more than welcome!

Thanks

PS: My favourite programme (see my name) starts a new series tonight - woo-hoo!

TillyTrippit

Hi Drag- Den,
What kind of private educational services? Is it aimed at parents or schools? If it is to schools then approaching them directly is the way forward - all addresses and emails are on the Ofsted website. If it is parents, then there are certain times of the year when they get 'antsy' about their kids and not working hard enough etc eg. Year 11 after mocks and around March.
Good Luck
Tilly
xx

Drag-Den

Hi Tilly,

Initially we are aiming at parents but long term we see potential for expansion by targeting LEA's and getting work through them, the service is basically specialized tuition. The nature of our service will make it prone to seasonal fluctautions in demand and your quite regarding pre-exam periods when you would expect higher demand -we've tried to account for this in our Year 1 forecasting! My partner is the educational expert and is concentrating on marketing directly to schools through his contacts etc whilst i am looking at the other options for getting our name out there.

Thanks for your interest.

JCourierPA

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

Does it not state anywhere on the contract they promise some work from it ? if so they havent kept their side of the bargin so why should you keep yours.

If it really is a problem call them and demand them to move your cards either to front desk or on the end of tills, be polite but stern.

Lifeisbutadream

We wasted £400 advertising at our local football club for a 15 second TV advert that runs several times per day when our team play at home.

We have not had one single call from them and have never even seen the advert running at the club (it might not even be there for all I know!). I feel really silly now, but at least have learnt from that mistake - we never advertise anywhere now apart from our local church magazine and local link. We have an advert in BT directory that brings a lot of work in (£500 per year) but are going to drop that next year, because we are so busy.

Hopefully next year we will just be looking at £90 per month for the local magazines.

Luna69

I think advertising is a difficult one, there are some good ideas in this thread though. We've advertised in local papers, usually if an ad on offer to fill spaces, we've had a few responses from them, but not loads. We get most of our work from word of mouth and just basically selling yourself as you have a conversation with someone.
We work near to a street of shops, whenever my partner pops out to the bank or for lunch, he very nearly always comes back with some more work from somoene!
We did put posters up in local shops for a while, we got some work from those.

A guy came to fit a new phone line in a few weeks ago and he's ended up getting some work from us since then too.
We tend not to pay for ridiculous advertising as much now.
We're forever getting phone calls to advertise in this mag, or paper but we now just have to refuse... they don't give up in a hurry though, can be quite annoying.