Advertising budgets

[rocker]

You post 1500 yourself??

That's my record, mid you that was on a VERY long day, 8-5 with a small stop for a sandwich and a few stops for a drink etc, in the terraced/no front garden areas. In some of the posh areas I have only done 250 on a long day, so it's swings and roundabouts!

If you just get your head down and blitz it you'll be suprised how many you can get through.

After word of mouth this is where I get most of my work from, but I think different areas react differently towards leaflets.

Belfast have you thought of leafleting? Something simple that stands out is all you need, if you have a printer the sky's the limit!

 

[robsparky1975]

I have just advertised in the local internet site(free) and used 1&1 £12 a month for a website,paid £200 for signwriting on the van,ive just started up so will hang fire for now,times are changing the old dears will use the telephone directory etc,the younger folk the internet,a budget combination of both may bring some work in.

 

[Octopus]

I am in the mentioned catch 22. Have very littlework so simply cant afford advertising anymore.

Doing nothing is not a option either, if I was you I'd go with 5000 A5 flyers and go leafleting

 

[sythai]

Currently spending £150/month.... on local free glossy mag, goes out to around 60,000 properties. 1/2 page A5, have paid 10% more to get right near front so I'm the first sparky they see.

It is working very well and more than pays for itself, last year around 15-20% of my business came from here.

Have also got website set up which you can sort out yourself for next to nothing and more recently set up twitter and facebook accounts which are also another form of free advertising.

All the best,

Sy

 

[kung]

Im thinking to give me the edge i might get loads of magnetic signs done and stick em on the rear of police cars ! might not last long but all those people who see it and think PHEW he must be good if the police use him !!!!!!

 

[accordfire]

Was just wondering how much people spend each month on advertising. I spend aroung £60 a month. The last two months has gone a little quiet for me so was thinking of spending a bit more??

Where do you feel your money is best spent?

Cheers, Ponty.

Wow. How long is a piece of cable?

Advertising budget depends on various factors - not least, who you're aiming for (your customers), expected yield, support marketing, and affordability.

What does your £60 a month buy you, on average, over the last say twelve months? How many customers did it reach - jobs you actually won, and invoiced? You need those figures to know how effective your current methods have been.

The other thing is that advertising should best be carried out as part of an overall marketing plan - inconsistent advertising usually yields poor results - e.g. sporadic leafleting, inconsistent image between marketing media (i.e. one logo on van, another on leaflets, and so on).

Overall, you'll achieve most success by taking it right back to the start, and making sure you know what common elements flow between each aspect of your marketing (i.e. how you tell customers who you are and what you do).

Then look at the customer base you want to market to. How do they typically source your service (or services like yours) - yellow pages? Google? Leaflets? Local paper? All of them? Van?

What I will say, is that almost EVERYONE looks for a website now - whether as a first point of call, or as a means of checking whether someone is genuine or not - o it is worth investing in a website, a bit of design that ties what you currently do in, and some google ranking - in your local coverage area at least. Use that as the basis, then supplement it with leaflets, local ads, etc.