What's the best free advertising?

[R.B Flooring 10]

I've used flyers, got business cards, Posted ads on the free sites, Got my van sign written and have got a website but still found the majority of work is through word of mouth. I get atleast one company a week phoning me to try sell me some form of advertising and they usually say they can guarantee me more work. I was just wondering what advertising has worked for other people?

[alandrea0 16]

You are probably already doing all of them. You just need to maximise all those free advertising opportunities.

 

Whatever you do don't be taken in with all these guarantees for getting you work from paid adverts. Many small companies go bust because they spend too much on paid advertising for very little return.

[TJC1 10]

press and PR is the best form of free advertising- if your savvy with the internet and social media free opps there too.

[indizine 10]

The best free advertising is SEO and other online activity, pending what is suitable for your type of business. Your website isn't optimised and unfortunately is using flash. Try disabling Flash and see what you get, then you will see what I mean. If we can't see it, neither can the search engine's (with regards seo, that is).

 

With regards cold callers, they will say what they need to, to get your money. After that, they will refer to their T&C as a cop out. I turn them all down and never spend money on advertising with such as directories on and off line, magazine ads, etc. There are simply better ways to bring a better return on investment (roi).

 

Get a Facebook page set up and spread word through all your family, friends and people who know in your area where you live. We set up a FB page for a new networking club I have recently started, and within 2 hours got 3 bookings for the meeting next week. One of our clients called in to pick up his mail this week and as we were talking, my daughter set him up a FB page and now he's on it every day adding friends, and a discount offer. Every bit helps as they say. Just choose what you spend your time and money on, wisely. Test a few things, see what you get back but also be patient. People expect the phone to start ringing far too soon and forget there is a period of conversion time with some types of activities. Aim to build your profile in your area and then across Sheffield, by being consistent and regular with whatever you do.

[JH.Joinery 10]

i mostly agree with you, most of my work is from word of mouth but also got a lot from my van been sign writen

[R.B Flooring 10]

The best free advertising is SEO and other online activity, pending what is suitable for your type of business. Your website isn't optimised and unfortunately is using flash. Try disabling Flash and see what you get, then you will see what I mean. If we can't see it, neither can the search engine's (with regards seo, that is).

 

With regards cold callers, they will say what they need to, to get your money. After that, they will refer to their T&C as a cop out. I turn them all down and never spend money on advertising with such as directories on and off line, magazine ads, etc. There are simply better ways to bring a better return on investment (roi).

 

Get a Facebook page set up and spread word through all your family, friends and people who know in your area where you live. We set up a FB page for a new networking club I have recently started, and within 2 hours got 3 bookings for the meeting next week. One of our clients called in to pick up his mail this week and as we were talking, my daughter set him up a FB page and now he's on it every day adding friends, and a discount offer. Every bit helps as they say. Just choose what you spend your time and money on, wisely. Test a few things, see what you get back but also be patient. People expect the phone to start ringing far too soon and forget there is a period of conversion time with some types of activities. Aim to build your profile in your area and then across Sheffield, by being consistent and regular with whatever you do.

I have a facebook page and a group for my business, My website was done for free by a friend and it will be getting revamped soon and i never get sucked into companies advertising "guarantees" I was conned by Yell a couple of years ago so i stay well clear of advertising in places like that now.

[anywebsite 10]

Yellow pages / Yell.com have a free single line advert, but you'll get a pushy salesperson calling you every month to try to sell you paid ads. You could do worse than a paid ad in Yellow Pages, I'm not sure about joiners, but a lot of tradesmen still get work from it.

 

Thomson local also has free ads, might be unlikely to give you any work, but it only takes a minute to register your details.

 

Google Places is another free place to advertise any business which serves a local area, you'll get a listing on Google Maps - http://www.google.com/local/add/

 

FreeIndex is one of the better online business directories - http://www.freeindex.co.uk/

 

There are other online directories, most are a waste of time, but there are a few good ones.

 

Don't forget Twitter.

 

Press & PR is a good suggestion too. The Sheffield Star are always desperate for something easy to write about to fill half an inside page. Maybe you could do some kind of small charity fund raiser or something else you could get them to write about & get a free mention of your business in the local paper.

[anywebsite 10]

The website could do with a lot of improvement too.

 

As indizine said, it's impossible to seo an entirely flash based website, so nobody searching for a joiner on the internet is going to find you.

 

There's also a spelling mistake, testamonials is spelled testimonials.

 

A better website would allow you to update it frequently with details of what you're working on. You could write a blog post with photos about each job. Then visitors to your site will be able to see exactly what work you do & will be more likely to enquire. You might get somebody who likes the look of a floor you laid last month & wants something similar, etc. You could use facebook & twitter to promote those blog posts.

 

LinkedIn is another popular social network site, targeted at business networking & professionals. It's free to sign up & it could be useful if you do (or want to do) work for other businesses.

Edited November 14, 2010 by anywebsite

[indizine 10]

PS Ref the Flash, it's fine for those who have Flash enabled, but occasionally, say at home at weekends like me, I turn it off so I dont get those annoying videos and things when i'm surfing, not work related.

 

I know i'm not the only one that does it. I wouldn't go out of my way to click 3 more things to enable it just to view the page, I would just click off and look elsewhere.

[R.B Flooring 10]

My friend who did me my website knows this now. It was one of his first websites that he did so it was kind of an experiment for him. Like i said earlier it will be getting a revamp at some point but since he doesn't charge me i try not to pester him because his work that he gets paid for should come first. He just does bits when he has a spare bit of time.

[indizine 10]

Well it could be said it's better than nothing. If money is tight, then I guess you have to stick with it. Just don't dont count it as one of your marketing tools because free or not, it isn't working for you (ie it's not bringing in any enquiries in it's own right). So if you ask the question, where can I get more leads, he obvious question will always be the website because you're missing out right now on what is one of the cheapest forms of advertising.

 

So if you do have any money to spend make the website your priority. If your friend is doing it, tell him to chuck up a wordpress site; it wll cost you next to nothing and will rank well if done properly. You can then do some online activity which costs you nothing but time and pretty soon (allow about 3 months as this is not a magic trick) you will be getting enquiries via your website and as time passes, it will improve.

Edited November 14, 2010 by indizine

[DavidRa 10]

The best free advertising is SEO and other online activity, pending what is suitable for your type of business. Your website isn't optimised and unfortunately is using flash. Try disabling Flash and see what you get, then you will see what I mean. If we can't see it, neither can the search engine's (with regards seo, that is).

 

With regards cold callers, they will say what they need to, to get your money. After that, they will refer to their T&C as a cop out. I turn them all down and never spend money on advertising with such as directories on and off line, magazine ads, etc. There are simply better ways to bring a better return on investment (roi).

 

Get a Facebook page set up and spread word through all your family, friends and people who know in your area where you live. We set up a FB page for a new networking club I have recently started, and within 2 hours got 3 bookings for the meeting next week. One of our clients called in to pick up his mail this week and as we were talking, my daughter set him up a FB page and now he's on it every day adding friends, and a discount offer. Every bit helps as they say. Just choose what you spend your time and money on, wisely. Test a few things, see what you get back but also be patient. People expect the phone to start ringing far too soon and forget there is a period of conversion time with some types of activities. Aim to build your profile in your area and then across Sheffield, by being consistent and regular with whatever you do.

 

In respect of facebook some people recommend having a seperate business entry from your normal personal one I suppose it depends on your type of business,I know a DJ who gets loads of work from facebook.