[The Great One]

Dear everybody

Here on the site recently the topic was bought up about having a national presence, a lot of discussion was given on the pro's and cons of the system.

To get straight to the point, I am designing a web site at the moment and I would like to add a page where carpet cleaners, window cleaners and cleaning services can advertise their services. there will obviously be a charge for this.

I have settled on a cost of £15.00 per month, payable by direct debit, this equates to around 50p per day.

If there is an uptake by you guys then we can begin to advertise the site on a national basis.

Advertising is a big subject on this site and what kind of advertising can you get for 50p a day on your own, but if enough people take the offer then we can use the accumalated funds to advertise nationally. people would be able to go to the site and find someone local to them, or phone the 0870 number.

Initially this would be done via the web on Google, Yahoo and Yell. As more people join we can then go to national press, radio and TV. we can also have a dedicated 0870 so someone is 'always in the office'

I know some of you guys are spending £5000.00 + and are not getting much response. This kind of advertising would be £180.00 per person, per year.

The site will be an ongoing, growing concern so those of you who wish to 'go for it' will have a say in how it grows and what you would like to see on the site, leaflets, ads, etc, etc.

Guys I would like all your thoughts on this, if you are/are not interested.

Regards

Martin

[martin19842]

hi there have Pm'd you

regards

martin

[Jan K]

Hi Martin!

I've also PM'd you

Cheers!

Jan

[maggie67]

Hi Martin

Me too!

Maggie

[Sarah2005]

It is very early days for me, however I think this could be of interest to me in the future 

[The Great One]

Hi guys

thanks for your PM's, the site is going to exists anyway as I want a web presense for my own biz. the adverts will be on a second page. Ad content can be contact details, what you do, link to web site etc.

A lot of companies do offer this but seem to be online only, I want to do on and Off-line advertising, with the dedicated 0870 number also. I feel it has potential and gives us a national presence. A few more details to iron out.

Thanks for the input and keep it coming.

Regards

Martin

[aviqularia]

I'm also just getting started but this sounds fantastic, when will it be online?

[CMS]

After having over twenty years experience in managing Cleaning Companies for others we are now about to set out on a new venture with a cleaning company of our own.

Part of our set up will be a web site but (and I really believe this) this will only be for a prospective client to use as a point of reference. I do not expect it to actually produce any business. Nor will we be relying on advertising to do that for us.

Twenty four years of drumming up new business has taught me that there is NO substitute for going out there and knocking on doors.

Please believe me when I tell you that I don't wish to dampen your enthusiasm but I guess you do not have a cleaning industry background.

[DP]

Hi Martin
A great idea (although it has been flogged to death in the past as we know) both on and off line.

Can I add something here, one of the biggest problems with this is getting associates to subscribe to a bit of endurance, as getting a listing position that translates to real enquiries can take a considerable time (however much money you throw at it) and expectations can run really high when money is being paid.

Googles Lycos MSN etc know exactly how to take money off you of course as do all the other agencies who promise to secure you better positioning and never do. Off line marketing of your web site is by far the most economical and effective in the early days. 

I will say however that 2 of us started a completely un-associated forum (not cleaning) 18 months ago and now receive more then 400,000 hits a month. The best part is that now Googles pay us to advertise them and the members get it free, so it can still work ok even in today's climate.

Good luck with this, I hope it works for you all, just watch out for those sharks who state they can increase your positioning for money (they cant) and if your a "would be associate", just budget for a little patience as well.

CMS is right when he says not to expect too much and also right regarding using the web site as a reference point. However what a reference point a web site is. It is the window on who you are and what you can do and it needs to be bang on, because as well as inspiring both trust and security it can also produce exactly the opposite, usually bought about by those terrible home builds.

However, All the best with it.

[CMS]

My sincere apologies to martin_606 for suggesting that you are not from a cleaning industry background. Had I bothered to read your 'signature' I would have known!

However, I still maintain my point of view that the only way to secure new business (certainly in the price range that I'm aiming for) is to go and get it by knocking on doors.

Then......when you've got it ...............provide a damn good service and let your name spread by word of mouth to other branches, associated businesses etc.

As I have said on my previous post, I have spent 24 years winning business for other companies and believe me, I have won some nice prestige contracts but................I'm struggling to think of one occasion when the Client came to us by way of advertising.

[Mike_Boxall]

Hi Martin

As I sent you a PM recently you'll be aware of our plans for something similar but I thought I ought to mention it here so people don't think we've 'stolen' your idea. We've been testing a site for a few weeks now and it's just about to become active.

It will allow members to initially list their services free of charge. There may be an option to pay for a top position at a later date but initially it will be a free service online.

I really don't want to affect your site plans as you are a valuable member of the forum. It may well be that you will promote your site more proactively than we will and that ours will simply end up as a free links page - as with anything you get what you pay far and I wish you well with it. Anyone with any internet marketing experience will agree that the more links you have to a website the better so hopefully members will register with both.

I do think that there is potential to offer some sort of national number service but I'm convinced that it would take more time and resources to succeed than we're able to justify.

Good luck with it in any case!

Regards

Mike

[DP]

Mike

The idea of "Paid of Unpaid Listing" cannot be stolen from anyone, it actually forms the foundation of the internet world wide. Search engines like Googles, MSN, Lycos,Yell.com etc are just very good at it. However they do spend £millions trying to be. I know in your case you probably mean in respect of timing.

Minority listing groups such as the cleaning industry (which are many, both past and present) tend to only work business to business (i.e. cleaning company to cleaning company).

To drive prospective raw clients (punters) to a list in bulk as needed to offer any real value to the advertiser, can require extensive branding or investment along with some sort of real reason/benefit that the client can use.

New start up companies are very vulnerable to easy avenue's when it comes to marketing/advertising (if its free its no problem) but if it has to be paid for then an element of logic needs to kick in and not faith. Which is the difference between business and just spending money. 

Isn’t building your business on somebody else's money a wonderful concept? But then again perhaps that’s just "selling" something we all do.

[Mike_Boxall]

Hi DP

I agree with what you say but what we propose is merely a service to cleanitup members. If and when it gets to the point where we can demonstrate it's worth paying for a premium spot and we can recover some of our costs then we'll consider charging for it.

Once we start cross linking the sites they should hopefully benefit each other. Express gains purely from the exposure, if members get leads they benefit if not there's nothing lost.

Regards

Mike

ps not that I want to brag but we've just won a Microsoft Award for another project we're about to launch. watch this space!

[DP]

Mike we also allow companies to advertise free except for the likes of googles etc which cover our costs , again like you say, we get the exposure and the association and at the end of the day its a service to the members by way of thanks for their input.

[shaun_pearson]

Mike dont worry about stealing martins idea, there are two reasons for this

1. martin is a franchisee and we all know they dont have any ideas of their own (just kidding)

2. its not martins idea to steal....its MINE

some time ago i posted a suggestion which is exactly what you are proposing, i even asked for some input from you which i never got then you turn up with "your idea"

Anybody an expert in corporate law?
or can you get me the number of a good lawyer

I dont know how to post a quote from my previous post but if somebody tells me i will post it.

[Mike_Boxall]

hi guys
            I have thought of this too, well a similar idea that i think would be easy to implement. We could market our services through this website. I believe this site is quite high up in search engines and with a little tweaking it could be much higher. We could market this website so that when a customer types into their search engine looking for a carpet cleaner this site is always near the top. There would be a button for say "looking for a carpet cleaner?" The customer would enter their postcode and it would display their nearest member. Could the forum admin tell us how many guests visit this site? At the enter to the forum page we could have the button that i have just described. Again its just an idea but if we put our heads together we could make something happen. There is also the possibility of us starting a new national carpet cleaners directory with only the members who are interested contributing, and of course benefiting. I think the cost of this would be low, well a lot lower than all the web based directories would charge you.

I am not trying to divert away from the original post, just adding to it.

what do you's think?        shaun

There you go Shaun.

There are a number of similar topics on the go at the moment so obviously great minds think alike. 

Actually, I wasn't suggesting it was 'our' idea just pointing out we're already working on a links site for the members. The idea of cleaning directories has been around for ages and, indeed, they've existed for some time (www.cleaning-directory.co.uk)

Sorry I didn't respond to your question about visitors - I often miss entire threads if I can't check the site for a day or two. I will have to check the stats but you have to take most figures with a pinch of salt. They can be manipulated in all sorts of ways but I'll try and find out the number of unique visitors.

Once the links site is up and running we'll be open for ideas about development.

Regards

Mike

[maggie67]

Hi!

We all have & share similar ideas! The fact that we all provide a cleaning service is just one!

There must be scores of you that have come up with ideas like this one. As a shrewd business person if you have an idea there are times when it can pay to keep it to yourself particularily if you are seeking credit for having the initial idea in the first place!!

Some of us are more dynamic and 'go get' than others although it doesn't always pay!

Unfortunately there is always someone out there who is going to pip you to the post as I have found from past experience and for the likes of us who wish to share ideas before realising them (I definately come into this category!) there will always be someone one step ahead. But can we blame them!

There is always an element of competition, why else are we all here, successful and in the same business! Isn't that what it's all about? :

Maggie

[shaun_pearson]

chill out maggie i was having a laugh.
Cheers mike, i was just curious to see how many non members visited, i think you starting this up is a great and will hopefully benefit us all

cheers shaun

[The Great One]

Shaun

Since when do you get the notion that I am a ' franchisee' ?

I am a sole operator (and a smooth one too!)

Regards

Martin

[Musicman]

Hi Mike, are you able to tell us how much this forum has increased your sales? No confidential information obviously.

Like CMS I am dubious that web-sites actually increase sales - being more of a business support tool.

While working for a cross section of the cleaning industry I have never had an actual lead from a web-site.

In the case of CIU however I am sure that your sponsorship has been worthwhile.

Musicman