Marketing suggestions

[theboyfold]

I'm looking into ideas for marketing a small business I'm thinking of running at the moment. I'm thinking of offering basic computer repair, configuration and website creation. It's service based and in the local community but I'm not sure quite how to spread the word.

I'm thinking along the lines of traditional marketing at the moment

• Local newspapers
• Leaflet distribution

However, I'm not sure if these are going to be that effective. Does anybody have any experience or suggestions as to how they spread the word for their businesses?

[E31Shrew]

I have a retail unit selling audio visual products. Formed it in 2003 and have just built up a reputation for those who demand good service, which has lead to recommendations.

At first I tried local rags, but made sure that for the half page I paid for, they gave me a half page FOC, with an article about the business and the people within it. Just advertising I found, to be a coplete waste of time without a personal story to go with it.

Local ad mags are a cheap way of getting your leaflets out. Seem to recall I paid £7 per 1000 but they are just a throwaway item but you may hit lucky.

Not a bad idea to spend some money getting your vehicle professionally stickered up!

[E31Shrew]

Do you work for that company beginning with a Q?? Or it used to!

[theboyfold]

E31Shrew said:

Do you work for that company beginning with a Q?? Or it used to!

Thanks for the first post, any links that you have would be useful.

And no, I've never worked for a company starting with Q. The alphabet would be H,D,W,M,D and now E

[theboyfold]

E31Shrew said:

I have a retail unit selling audio visual products. Formed it in 2003 and have just built up a reputation for those who demand good service, which has lead to recommendations.

At first I tried local rags, but made sure that for the half page I paid for, they gave me a half page FOC, with an article about the business and the people within it. Just advertising I found, to be a coplete waste of time without a personal story to go with it.

Local ad mags are a cheap way of getting your leaflets out. Seem to recall I paid £7 per 1000 but they are just a throwaway item but you may hit lucky.

Not a bad idea to spend some money getting your vehicle professionally stickered up!

Not sure the car is right to be stickered up TBH. As for the local rag, that's not a bad idea, I'll make a list of the local papers and see what I can sort out.

The leaflet drops you have found sound cheap, I've found an ex-postie who will drop a lot leaflets at a very good price.

[E31Shrew]

Was thinking of Quantel ..Used to sell to them years ago but I expect theyve gone west!

I dont know the exact area youre looking at but note the free ad mags you get for the leaflet distribution and contact your local rags for PR etc. Most of them look forward 'good news' stories and anyone starting a new venture at this time can be placed in that category! Dont go along with any first quotes from the rags though....They are all desperate for ad revenue so will move mountains.

Good luck!

[E31Shrew]

Onr other point...Inc=vest in a small reliable van. Peugeot Partner / Berlingo type. Great ad banner and you'll need it!

[theboyfold]

I think I'm going to be ok without a van or anything like that for the time being. At the moment I'm not going to quit working my other job, it's more something on the side that I 'hope' to be able to do. I say hope as I have no idea how it's going to pan out at the moment...

[ShadownINja]

Something to bear in mind. Leaflets tend to generate a response rate of around 0.1%. You could try to increase this response rate by including a special offer.

Adverts are better used for just getting your name known. If you have an insert with a special offer inside the same issue as the ad, this could increase the response.

Remember to code up each leaflet or you'll never know where someone came from if they just say "I got a leaflet" and thus which campaign was successful eg Ref: surreycomet150210.

I know of one company who sent out tens of thousands of three different letters/leaflets with the same order form and didn't know about using reference numbers.

Edited by ShadownINja on Monday 15th February 09:26

[Engineer1]

In the days of VOIP you can do the same by putting different telephone numbers on the ads or cheaper have contact names, just remember that the Fred they ask for is the code not a wrong number.