Paper Advertising - A Trial

[DSLiverpool]

Well we have decided to do the bleeding obvious and after importing cheap phone systems for years we are going to install them locally at first then once I have sussed out the pitfalls we will open it up.

How to reach the quite defined market was difficult, online would lose us in a myriad of hosted and cloud based large telecoms companies and this is very different.

We are very much aimed at small start ups or even home users with a separate home office / line really at the S end of SME and we sell lots of these already by mail order and typically once they have had a quote that either baffles them or scares them financially.

I got the Liverpool Echo chap in and was surprised that we can get a half page in the weekly SME supplement for £500 good value I thought so we will trial this followed up by 2 quarter pages on the following weeks for £1k and they give you an entry in an online directory I had never heard of or used before.

Now it may be £1k wasted - anyone tried anything similar? but I couldn't think of anything else

Quite looking forward to going out on quotes again, not done this for nearly 30 years when I did alarms.

[jonamv8]

good luck with it.

anytime i have gone old school it's been money down the drain but different target markets so hopefully will work for you

[BrabusMog]

We don't do newspaper, but our drivers are given leaflets and an incentive of £50 per customer they bring in from any leaflets they've handed out. It's quite useful for us as they are quite often going into shared offices and they can just leave some with the receptionist - one of them has managed to get us about 6 customers by having a word with the main receptionist and splitting his £50 with her for referrals! Not quite the same as newspaper advertising, but maybe worth a punt?

Also, is that your advert in the FSB magazine on (I think) the inside front page? Has that got you any business?

[DSLiverpool]

To reach a small SME is hard, last few customers were
Ball bearing and belt seller
2 New letting agencies (one quoted £2k by daisy)
Solicitor
2 Doctors surgeries(small)
Roofer
Restaurant with cordless headsets for bookings
So very diverse that they are hard to catch and online our spend is swamped so lets try the papers!!

[trickywoo]

May not be a goer but if you could get a list of companies who qualify for small business rates relief you could call them direct.

I run such a business and have been called based on it so a list should be available maybe from the local council.

Also I'm pretty sure a list of newly registered companies is available as I've been contacted on this also.

[Frimley111R]

Newspapers can be good for products that appeal to a wide variety fo people but your products are too niche to make this a cost effective solution. Identifying them is your challenge, spend some time on that firstly.

[jamescodriver]

Our local paper does a Business Magazine every two months or so, they then distribute it to, funnily enough, local businesses... Might be worth seeing if there is something similar?

[jammy_basturd]

Could you not partner with a company that is already servicing SMEs, offer a referral scheme to the partner as per BrabusMog detailed?

I'm thinking PAT testers, commercial window cleaners, IT services companies, HSE services companies as likely partner companies.

[Hoofy]

What about networking events? See meetup.com.

[JimmyConwayNW]

What about advertising on the papers website ?

[DSLiverpool]

Thanks chaps - the sweet spot for a guy buying a phone system is very narrow however people setting up a biz do tend to peruse biz type articles a lot before setting up and we need to hit them LOCALLY. The paper supplement is a SME special and for £1k over 3 weeks we only need a few customers to get that back.

The BNI meeting type stuff isn't for us as the window of opportunity is too small, we are cheap and fast I am hoping to do a few systems a day. Once my consumer credit approval comes through we will be offering £99 down terms to sole traders and I expect to expand into the further North West but this will be a good experiment. Note the advert will also push our headsets, business phones, conference phones etc so may get some off target sales.

[Hoofy]

Google ads? You can focus the advert on local areas. Have a landing page with everything the potential customer needs.

[DSLiverpool]

Hoofy said:

Google ads? You can focus the advert on local areas. Have a landing page with everything the potential customer needs.

That's in the pipeline and a good call - its quite a skill setting them up correctly

[Chrisgr31]

trickywoo said:

I run such a business and have been called based on it so a list should be available maybe from the local council.

Potentially available by a Freedom of Information request. Hopefully wasnt a call to tell you that you could claim small business relief and charge you for the privilege as the government and Councils have been doing a lot to try and ensure all eligble businesses take it up!

[jamescodriver]

What about a referral offer for local Commercial Agents? they'll be letting the offices and shops etc?

Check planning dept for change of use applications etc?

[DSLiverpool]

jamescodriver said:

What about a referral offer for local Commercial Agents? they'll be letting the offices and shops etc?

Check planning dept for change of use applications etc?

We are asking the commercial agents if we can include an advert / flyer type thing - the local roller shutter company puts stickers on everyones doors so maybe a sticker on all empty commercial units (no I wouldn't do that)

[richardxjr]

I know you can get mailing lists of newly moved businesses, or you could a while back, updated every so often. From BT data I expect. If it's local I'd be knocking on their doors or leaving a leaflet, and then the neighbours whilst you/whoever is there. Whilst the ads are running so they may already be aware.

[DSLiverpool]

richardxjr said:

I know you can get mailing lists of newly moved businesses, or you could a while back, updated every so often. From BT data I expect. If it's local I'd be knocking on their doors or leaving a leaflet, and then the neighbours whilst you/whoever is there. Whilst the ads are running so they may already be aware.

Glenigans (sp) is the industry standard, when I worked for NOVAR (MK electric accessories) we used Gennigans (sp) to get all new projects etc but this is tiny and for now the advert will do. I have reduced the cost by selling a third of the advert to an IT support company (the one we use) who need to attract the same sort of customer so a £666 outlay

[BrabusMog]

DSLiverpool said:

richardxjr said:

I know you can get mailing lists of newly moved businesses, or you could a while back, updated every so often. From BT data I expect. If it's local I'd be knocking on their doors or leaving a leaflet, and then the neighbours whilst you/whoever is there. Whilst the ads are running so they may already be aware.

Glenigans (sp) is the industry standard, when I worked for NOVAR (MK electric accessories) we used Gennigans (sp) to get all new projects etc but this is tiny and for now the advert will do. I have reduced the cost by selling a third of the advert to an IT support company (the one we use) who need to attract the same sort of customer so a £666 outlay

I sent out a dirty fax mailer on Wednesday and we've managed to get 3 new customers from it already - as well as about a million faxes telling us to fk off! Not bad for £100 + VAT.

[DSLiverpool]

BrabusMog said:

I sent out a dirty fax mailer on Wednesday and we've managed to get 3 new customers from it already - as well as about a million faxes telling us to fk off! Not bad for £100 + VAT.

Fax number list from ? ie if it was easy to get its a no brainer once in a while but getting to my target is not easy.