What's your main method of advertising?

[top-click]

Hi All, am trying to guage a shift in the use of certain marketing methods -the mix seems to be ever shifting towards internet based tools and I would like to know your opinions,...

Rob
top-click

[ebonybailey]

My opinion is that PPC fast becoming the norm in most SME to MidMarket companies, its an easy way to get your name out there, with many other sources of marketing it is either time consuming, expensive or too risky, PPC is almost bulletproof.

I would imagine you have seen a rise in your client lists over the last 12 months.

Michael

[clairemackaness]

Whats PPC?

[ebonybailey]

Pay Per Click

[clairemackaness]

Oh of course, silly me!

[Coding Monkey]

I only use Pay-Per-Click and word of mouth

[ebonybailey]

Does it cost you much tom?

as with telemarketing there are Millions of web design companies fighting for a place, even more so than telemarketing.

[Coding Monkey]

What happened initially was I got a lot of interest, and little happened. Now, this could be because I was useless at selling, but I've got a list of everyone who e-mailed me and almost all of them had a domain name, and wanted a website. Not 1 of them has had their website designed, and my main advertising was in August.

At the same time, I stuck on Adwords, 30 minutes later someone contacted me, turned it off thereafter and got a £7k contract from a 93p investment.

I spent so much time altering adverts, measuring etc etc that I have a 20% contact rate on some adverts, and they don't have obscure words in, but receive several hundred queries a day.

It definitely pays off, but it's worth hiring someone to do it for you, as the time you invest into learning it all, optimising it, measuring it and so on isn't worth it, unless, like me, you work in the industry and can advise clients on it.

As a final point, and perhaps it's because I don't have a price on my website, but I do find an awful lot of time wasters, or those just "looking", with the intension of wanting something a few months later, which means they'll use Google again in a few months and choose another design company to take care of it for them.

Oh, and for your actual question: about £300 a month. My average sale is over £2k, so it's not hard to see how it helps me. If you have a good website, good copy and a good advert, you will make a huge return.

[clairemackaness]

Tom, do you think PPC would work for me? If so, you mentioed getting someone to sort it all out for me, how much would this set me back?

[Coding Monkey]

Well, top-click (author of this post) does PPC for a living. I think PPC can work for almost anyone. Remember, it's giving people exactly what they want at the exact moment they're looking for it. You place an advert in a newspaper, and you'd be lucky to find anyone who just happens to scan the local paper for art. You have PPC, and you find people looking for abstract art and wanting to buy it, if you get the keywords right.

[ebonybailey]

use topclick i have b4 and got Konica as a client from it.

Tom when people visit your site give them a way of contacting you through the site, and offer them to be sent you newsletter so that in a few months time they will not need to check google again when they can check there inbox for your latest newsletter, if you look on my site that is what i have done. This way your are also buidling a pipeline rather than living for the moment.

Hope that makes sense

Michael

[top-click]

I've helped a few bods set up recently - PM me and I'll walk you through the process if u like

[Coding Monkey]

Trust me, Michael, I've kept in touch with them all, and none of them have went ahead or seem to have any interest in doing so if they didn't go ahead within a specific time frame. I had 1 guy who claimed to have got in touch with 100 other companies before getting it down to 10! I had hugh success with AdWords last month, though, and I'd be confident enough to say it was through changing the content and changing the way I talk to clients about their projects. So, AdWords is not to blame.

And they can get in touch via the site.

[Patrick Cadona]

In my opinion there is never a best method to Marketing and PR every company or business works in different ways with different values and visions, as long as they have clear objectives with clear brand values everything which is marketing or pr related should work successfully!

Regards
Patrick

[fastfences]

As a trade, most of my ads are done via local papers and phone books. I've also had excellent results through Yell.com.
Cheers, Nigel

[SillyJokes]

Claire PPC is good when it works but you have to write your adverts quite carefully and watch things like inadvertantly paying £10 instead of 10p a click which then runs up quite a bill overnight (although this is less likely if you set a daily budget).

If you have a good profit margin to play with then you should be OK.

It's when you look into click fraud that your hair turns white.

[CG Effect]

Who are the maniacs using cold calling? Own up!!!

[Pebble Communications]

Don't forget that the survey is probably a little skewed in that people who are spending time on internet forums are probably very open to internet use in other ways.

I know lots of businesses who don't even have a website, who wouldn't dream of using ppc or advertising on-line. I even know of a business that has e-mail and gets and sends about a grand total of 5 a day, because very few of their clients are IT literate or use the internet or e-mail. I was discussing this with him the other day and he said that even if he e-mails one with an e-mail address, they probably only check it once a fortnight or so!

Hard to believe but true. A lot of people just don't understand the benefits of the internet and consider computers a thing for children to play with.

[VeryMark]

Our main tool is networking via BNI, business clubs, UKBF, etc and referrals - we've actually had someone we threatened to sue on behalf of one client be impressed enough to recommend us to two other firms who've become clients.

The Internet is very important, but what's more important is ways of people getting to know us personally or being recommended by other people - you wouldn't necessarily choose e.g. a plumber or a hairdressser or lawyer via the Internet if you knew nothing about them.

[Hayles]

As we get a lot of our business for the catering company through recommendation, we're just starting to spend money on that sort of advertising. This includes regular follow ups, discount club, refer a friend, etc. Also mail shots to local venues, clubs and church halls etc.

We'd not thought of actually spending money on that form of advertising before - just expected it to happen any way.

[ebonybailey]

I do believe it does depend on your type of business too, if your an internet business you are more likely to use the internet to promote it, just like I use the phone to promote what I do.