Advertising your business

[Corgigrouch]

I tend to monitor where my calls come from by using a different number for Yellow pages/Thompson, Local rag or cards throught the door.... I have found that the listings pages do bring the odd job in but rarely enough to pay for the advert. Local paper works well for emergency/ breakdown work through the Winter and the cards through the door gives a small return (I print my own cards on my printer and shove them through letter boxes up and down the street where I have been working, it only takes a few mins) Once I have a customer, it pays to be friendly and cheerful and I always leave my name and number stuck to the case of the boiler, and also leave them a couple of business cards for them to give to their friends though most will get chucked in the bin... Oh! and a tidy van with lettering saying what you do and your telephone number, I have been called to fix a boiler from the guy in the car behind me...

 

[WoodYouLike]

If you keep adding the same messages to all the "relevant" post you can find (4 so far) to advertise your business, you just end up being banned from the forum.
Real the rules: NO ADVERTISING, NO REPLYING TO OLD POSTS

(Now the ad post has been removed, just ignore this )

 

[martinxxxxxx]

If you keep adding the same messages to all the "relevant" post you can find (4 so far) to advertise your business, you just end up being banned from the forum.
Real the rules: NO ADVERTISING, NO REPLYING TO OLD POSTS

Who are you directing this advice to?

Martin

Also your signiture looks a lot like advertising too

 

[WoodYouLike]

Who are you directing this advice to?

Martin

If you would have followed this post earlier you would have seen a blatant advert, removed by the moderators later

 

[studips]

existing customer base,
being available.
the pub and similar,
leaflets have done nothing for me, local rag has been quite good when i've used it.

not for the faint hearted, but apparently our polish cousins are avid church goers, and once you are in with the god botherers, you're sorted. i know it worked well for one at our local church.

my accountant was also trying to get me to go along to business network international - an american bs thing where you have breakfast once a week at 6 am or some such ungodly hour and give each other business cards to pass around. the one who gets the most referalls gets a standing ovation, the ones who don't get enough get horse whipped. apparently. i'm not good in the mornings, so it was a non started for me.

 

[WoodYouLike]

Been a member of BNI for a few year, and "horse-whipped" is the wrong expression it's not that bad

It's not for everyone, but we've made some decent (long term) contacts through it (and many friends).