Cheaper,free advertising

sehc1

Hi, Has anyone please got any advice on how I can save money in advertising. Yellow pages have recently quoted me £150 for a year. Although this might seem cheaper than some it is still quite a spend for myself. I have just started a Bouncy Castle Company which is in its very early stage. Has anyone got any suggestions where I can save money on advertising

Thanks

geordie_joe

I don't know any specific places, as I don't know where you are based. But what you need to look for is local places where local people would look for services.

Yellow pages can be good, but if you are looking for cheap advertising look for local council sites, local community sites, local scout group sites. In fact any web site that is for or about local groups will be a good place to advertise.

Don't bother too much with free advertising sites, as the only people who look at those are advertisers looking for free advertising.

What you need is something the local people would be interested in looking at, and that accepts adverts. Church magazines, girl guides news letters, local history group pamphlets. Possibly a local magazine that is delivered free to households. The local rugby club web site?

Look in your local chippy, mine has a board for local businesses to stick their cards on.

Poppycat

Have you got a free local paper they can be cheap way to advertise.

I know advertising isn't cheap my brother started a online business last year and he has spent about 6k on advertising, including local radio


Also dont forget to get a web site goings once set up and can be a cheap way to advertise

Joyful

How about Gum Tree which is free or check out https://www.thebestof.co.uk. It covers the country but is localised. You can also speak on your advert. I use this for my business. I believe it starts at £10 per month. Also do you have any local magazines that you could take out adverts in?

geordie_joe

Poppycat wrote: »

Also dont forget to get a web site goings once set up and can be a cheap way to advertise

Then look into swapping links with other local sites.

mpython

Have you thought of doing some kind of public relations exercise. So, do a morning with your bouncy castle raisning money for, say, Breast Cancer. Then send a short note to all the local papers telling them how much you've (or rather your firm + telephone number) have raised. Not all papers will carry the story but all it will cost you is your time.

kawasaki_dave

mpython wrote: »

Have you thought of doing some kind of public relations exercise. So, do a morning with your bouncy castle raisning money for, say, Breast Cancer. Then send a short note to all the local papers telling them how much you've (or rather your firm + telephone number) have raised. Not all papers will carry the story but all it will cost you is your time.

I'll second that.

I'm the chairman of a new but up and coming charity and part of my role is to show local businesses that advertising by donating to us is far more successful than using conventional methods. Prior to my current role I was the national development officer and events manager of a similar charity organisation (all voluntary).

This is an extract from one of our sponsor presentations and is based on hard research:

Local Newspaper - £900.00
(£15 per 1000 readers - based on average price for full page advert and circulation figure (average 59800)
Local Radio - £4120
£17 per 1000 listeners - Based on average price for 90 x 30 second adverts and listener figures (245,000)
Leaflets - £3450
(£43 per 1000 distributed - based on average production and distribution cost (80,000)


Now if your business was to donate £100 to our charity you'd get mentions in our press releases, links from our website and the opportunity to place your company's logo or sticker on our vehicles. Should a company want to start hitting four figure sponsorships we put out an exclusive press release to local newspapers and radio stations, it's released on our website and you get larger stickers on our vehicles, mentions in our advertising literature etc.

Take into account that our vehicles attend around 10 - 15 events a year with at least 5 of those having an attendance in excess of 30,000 people, and you can see that it makes sense to use us to advertise rather than conventional methods.

Crabman

Hi sehc1, I'll move this over to the 'Small Biz & Charity Organisers MoneySaving' Board.

Take a look at the sticky threads there, particularly the Small Business Start Up Discussion. All the best with your new company!

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere(please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

save-a-lot

Get your business card all over the local area, on pinboards everywhere... I just bought 500 with my design with a glossy finish for £30 delivered off ebay. Get advertising on your vehicle... again plenty of people on ebay offering lettering for vehicles, cheapest I have seen is a £10 with good feedback for that one product.

Do some freebie's in your local area and be prepared and hand out flyers to parents who are standing there waiting for their children... offer it up for childrens parties etc.

foxsake123

you need to spend money for yellow pages it will bring in the most customers. everything else will be a false economy. it will be £150 well invested.

RMP_2

you need to spend money for yellow pages it will bring in the most customers. everything else will be a false economy. it will be £150

& you don't work for YP I presume ??????????