[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

I have always liked a freebie 

I have decided that I am going to look into types of free ( or very cheap  ) marketing over the next few weeks.
Facebook, Gumtree are my starting points.

I have dabbled in FB before and apart from my own FB friends who I don't mind offering a little discount to I have found it a total waste of time, full of time wasters and chavs, but I am going to try and give it another go.
Does anyone have any advice on FB marketing because even though I'm normally very good at marketing I still can't get my head around FB. I know other types of business that get loads of ( if not all ) of their work from FB. I also know a few couriers who get most of their work from Gumtree, but does it work for carpet cleaners!

Also can you think of any other types of free marketing!

[Cleaner Windows]

Can't comment on fb really but I know a lot of villages have their own local website you can ad for free on a lot of them and there are free local business website you can use,  I've been doing things like this myself recently just for extra new years efforts to try and pull work in

[david@zap-clean]

Facebook, Gumtree are not free, or cheap - registering on them is.  You pay dearly for advertising, like any other marketing medium.  They may all work (for some), but remember, Facebook and Gumtree marketing are only a piece of the advertising jigsaw.

Marketing is a very interesting, and complex, part of running a successful business.

[Cleaner Windows]

Facebook, Gumtree are not free, or cheap - registering on them is.  You pay dearly for advertising, like any other marketing medium.  They may all work (for some), but remember, Facebook and Gumtree marketing are only a piece of the advertising jigsaw.

Marketing is a very interesting, and complex, part of running a successful business.

I think you can actually have a business page on face book that's free if you have an active personal fb account,  there's an option on there to create one.  I did it a few years back wheni had an active account. Still don't know if it works well or anything as I had nothing from it and got fed up with fb so deactivated the account

[*Hector*]

You may also find that gumtree advertising brings out the price shopping chavs..

People go to these "cheap" sites for a reason.... to get things cheap.

If you intend to furnish the lower price end of the market, then gumtree should be alright, however if you wish to price higher...... You may be waiting for a long time for the work to come in..

BUT.... if you don't try you wont get any where...

[david@zap-clean]

I've been trialling a facebook business page for quite a while now:

https://www.facebook.com/ZapClean
...It's not provided any new leads sofar.

And I've also trialled facebook sponsored advertising - which didn't work for me either.

[neil 47]

Google is by far the best free advertising medium other than networking, If you can call it that as both take time up.

As I get older I realise that my time is far more Valuable than I once thought it was .
what price do you put on your time ?

As for google im no seo expert but what i do know is , put lots of work into your site with lots of fresh content and you will rise to the top , you need to be at least 3rd from the top in organic linkings to get any amount of work of it .

As for Networking im lucky i talk a lot

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

Hi Neil. I already get loads of work from the internet and all my websites that I have built are at the top of page 1 on Goggle. I have ideas for 4 other websites (for carpet and hard floor cleaning ), but just can't bring my self to start them, they do take up a lot of time over the first year. I do enjoy the building of them, it's the SEO I can't stand even though I'm good at it. I may just get a professional to do them for me  and stop being a skin flint. I do love websites, once the hard work is done their is very little to do to keep them bringing money in.

I tried a free ad on Facebook the other day on one of the local selling pages they have on there, and got about 10 replies. This was after putting a really silly offer on compared to my normal prices. I was just after a few job fillers and wanted to know what the response was and knew their was no point trying to get top dollar from this type of customer.
I got one job from it and spent most of the day answering silly questions about price. So yes I filled a job slot but how much of my time did I use getting it.

The best free/cheap ways of marketing are to just to get out their suited and booted and network and direct sell, but it's just not me. I don't need much more work, maybe just be a bit busier from Jan to March and was just looking for inspiration really for any out of the box ideas.