[terrymaloy]

Been a little quiet as of late so I've done a little searching on here as how to get possible new customers.
Here are my general findings...
Yell.com...dont bother, they're rubbish
Yellow pages...even worse, save your money
Google ad words...complete and utter waste of time !
Groupon....you'll be bust in 6 month.
Living Social...you'll be bust in 4 months.
Leaflets...they dont work and will end up in the bin.
Door knocking...waste of time and you'll get the door slammed in your face.

I've been in business over 13 years now and pretty much rely on repeat business and referals for work.
Anybody like to share any form advertising that actually does work
 
Regards,
Terry

[Dominic Carnell]

Yell.com... you're probably right
Yellow pages... OK to target older customers, minimise yearly spend to maximise ROI
Google ad words... excellent ROI, if setup correctly
Groupon.... play the game and it might work, probably right though
Living Social... see above
Leaflets... ensure that they are actually delivered correctly and  the message is clear and you should see a good ROI
Door knocking... people don't generally like to be hassled on their doorstep so I wouldn't be surprised

Don't forget organic SEO, press/media exposure, local magazines etc

Ultimately, right now, there is a business famine, if you want to come out of it alive then you need to ensure your customer proposition is awesome, otherwise you're set to starve.

[james roffey]

Leaflets work, but only when they go through the door

[prodry]

Google ad words...complete and utter waste of time !

$42.5 billion revenue from Adwords for Google in 2012. Sorry but it does work for millions.. If it hasn't worked for in the past then you may have not had it set up correctly-efficiently...

I get 5 to 1 return for my customers on their spend. Sometimes much more.

[terrymaloy]

$42.5 billion revenue from Adwords for Google in 2012. Sorry but it does work for millions.. If it hasn't worked for in the past then you may have not had it set up correctly-efficiently...

I get 5 to 1 return for my customers on their spend. Sometimes much more.


[/quote]
I hav'nt personally used Google ad words...could someone explain in simple terms how it works ?

[prodry]

Its hard to explain everything about in a post.

Google are currently doing £100 worth of advertising for £25 ie. you pay £25 and they match it with £75. For new advertisers.

We charge £40 to set-up an adwords account or you could do it yourself. However there are many pit falls which will see your budget disappearing. Then you will be one of the many who spend their budget in a couple of days in the wrong way and say Adwords is a waste of time.

Either read up about it if you are going to do yourself and do not use the Express Service. Or pay us or someone else to do it for you. Think there is someone called Ash White who is on here that does this service as well.

Michael http://www.imola-media.co.uk

[AshWhite]

Nice, unbiased post Michael - good to see 

Terry - this is a VERY brief, simplified explanation,
If you do a Google search for a service, more often than not you'll see 'Ads related to...' on the top of the page, above the 'organic' listings, as well as down the right hand side, and on the very botto of the page. These are Adwords ads created by/for the advertiser - you can specify what you want the ad to say, and what website/page you want the ad to link to (as long as it complies with Google's T&Cs).

First you choose which area you want to cover - for most carpet cleaners a radius of 5-10 miles is sufficient. Then, you compile a list of keywords for which you want your ad to show - 'carpet cleaners, upholstery cleaners' etc etc. Then you set a 'max bid amount' - that is how much you are willing to bid to have your ad displayed when those terms are searched for.

Next, you create some ads to show when your keywords are triggered, and decide what page you want to redirect to (carpet cleaning search to carpet cleaning page, upholstery cleaning page to upholstery, for example).

Once that is completed, your campaign can go live. Every time someone searches for the keywords you have chosen, Google runs an extremely fast 'auction' for everyone in the relevant area who has elected to use those keywords for their campaign. The auction takes into account several factors, most importantly:
Max click bid
'Quality' Score

Your quality score is how relevant the search is to your advert & your website - Google don't want people who are searching for rug shops to find carpet cleaners (if that makes sense??). The higher your bid and better your quality score - the higher up the page your ad will appear (and therefore, more likely to be clicked on).

If your ad gets displayed 100 times, but never clicked on (maybe your ad is poor or not ranking high enough due to the above factors) then it will cost you no money at all. Adwords is a PPC (Pay-per-click) service - which means you only pay when users actually click on your ad. Of course, if they get to your website and don't like what they see - then you've paid for nothing, that's why Adwords definately works, but is only a small cog in the machine.

I hope you can make some sense out of that post, and I've not left you more confused than before I started  I'm going for a lie down!

[AshWhite]

I should point out that there are a lot more 'advanced' features of Adwords, which can make your campaign a lot more efficient, but for anyone looking to do their own campaign to trial Adwords the above explanation is a starting point.

[wayne zabel]

Whats to stop someone,maybe a competitor clicking on your add all the time and so costing you money?

[AshWhite]

Wayne, Google does have systems in place to combat this. Repetitive clicks might cost you clicks once every few days - but that's about it. One of my customers at the moment has a competitor who clicks his ad between 20-60 times a day. It runs up costs of up to £150, but Google cancel them off before they even get billed (even though they're coming from an iPhone which uses dynamic IP addresses). Basically, it's more hassle for your competitors to do than it is for you.

[COLIN BRIGHT]

beg

[Craigp]

Lower your prices 

If someones doing lounges for £25 undercut them and go in at £20 

[Mark Lane-Matthews]

Hi Terry
Have you tried phoning commercial  businesses,contractors,hotels etc finding out  who to deal with and make a appointment, it is a very good way of getting your foot in the door,also you could cold call at shops etc as it is not so intrusive
              Mark

[wynne jones]

Go in shops, ideally pound shops and buy something. Then ask to speak to the manager. So for a pound you get let down very politely. 

[david knowles]

Great discription  Ash well explained thanks

[AshWhite]

No problem, glad it made sense to you 

[garybristow]

,you mention repeat bus and refferals,write to your clients ,offer them some incentive to have some work done,say book by the end of april and receive 10 per cent discount on carpets or 20 per cent of upholstery,
get more from existing customers.
drop them a line ,tell them the date you last did some work and they are due to be done again,just prick there imagination
give it a try
gary

[terrymaloy]

,you mention repeat bus and refferals,write to your clients ,offer them some incentive to have some work done,say book by the end of april and receive 10 per cent discount on carpets or 20 per cent of upholstery,
get more from existing customers.
drop them a line ,tell them the date you last did some work and they are due to be done again,just prick there imagination
give it a try
gary

Cheers Gary, I do in fact send postcards to my previous customers every 12 months and they do work although rising postage costs can be a pain...was thinking of sending reminders via txt...bit more impersonal though 
Thanks again Ash for putting me in the picture