How would you spend £500?

[scotmum]

I am running a very small start up business: www.scotmum.com

I have carried out a great deal of publicity in the last 8 weeks that has been free and paid for: interviews in parenting magazines, local newspapers and a year long sponsorship on the parenting page of a glossy Scottish magazine. I now have a cash injection (albeit very small in PR terms) of around £500. I am debating how to spend this wisely. I need to increase membership levels of my forum (currently 130, although would be 130,000 if I let all the spammers in). I want to increase general traffic to the site too.

If you were in my position, what would you spend a monkey on?

 

[Ecler]

I'd definitely invest in some online marketing activities since you're interested in driving traffic to your website.

- SEO / link building would be a good start
- Look at a social media strategy as I'm sure a lot of your target audience will be using social networking sites such as facebook / twitter
- Register on online directories

These are just some pointers but I'm sure there's a lot more you can do.

Etienne

 

[Phoenixp1]

id spend it on shoes personally

jimmy choo yes please

 

[EfficientEnergySolutions]

I would just keep it in the business and build your business using free techniques which you can learn yourself to increase traffic:

SEO
Link Building
Press Releases
Word of Mouth via current suscribers
etc

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

A spa, a very good meal, a facial, a massage, a new pair of shoes, a new hair do, a bit of Jewellery, and a day off!

But I guess all of them are outside the rules
Oh well back to work!

 

[rizbit]

A spa, a very good meal, a facial, a massage, a new pair of shoes, a new hair do, a bit of Jewellery, and a day off!

But I guess all of them are outside the rules
Oh well back to work!

save it up and only use when needed i guess

 

[reaperweb]

Probably some form of money return, i.e. a small online store with a dropshipping supplying the products. The money made from this, i would then look at reinvesting in some heavy marketing techniques.

Do you have a marketing support person helping with this?

 

[scotmum]

I did look into adding a small shop to the site, but the products I would want to stock aren't available to dropship.

I am a business of one person only so don't have any marketing assistance. I think I might just get my trainers on and do some targeted flyering using some of the money to pay for printing.

Or I could put it all on black and hope for the best!

 

[reaperweb]

Where have you looked for dropshippers? drop me an email as i may know a couple, but would need to discuss what you need properly with you first.

 

[david poole]

Good morning to you.

I think my first answer to your question is just to hold on to the money for now. £500 seems like a lof of money for your company at the moment so lets look at other ways of improving your website.

If you went through with the following advice would you be so kind enough just to write me a testimonial?


right ok this is what i would look to do for a good looking website like yours...And I have to say that other than advertising revenue I cant see any other income stream on there. you might want to consider thudgard or other associated products.

1) Drive Traffic
2) Increase cusotmer relationship management

ok so how to drive traffic. you may have done a few of these things already but Im sure they might me a few nuggets for you.

These ideas help with google page ranking and help drive traffic

*get on as many free directories as possible
*Goto the google autobot and ask the gogle spider to visit your site
*slightly modify your site each week to keep the interest of the googlebot
*post on as many forums you can with your url
*get into as many relevant forums as possible

other ways of driving traffic

*you have ads to dorothy perkins, ELC and waterstones, do they have link to your site?

small changes to your website

I notice you have a members area, but it needs to be made easier to join. I honestly dont know what to do there.

once people join have an auto responder setup to email out pre written information.
In that information you need to be telling people what to do in order to drive your sales.


Investment

If you were to make an investment i think at this stage i would spend £140 on "Insider secrets to marketing a business on the internet" by derek gehl.

I biought it, it makes easy reading, total sense and it works.



david poole

 

[Deleted member 6464]

Hi,

I'll suggest you keep it in a savings account or something for the business.

Then concentrate on off-page seo.

Write articles related to pregnancy e.t.c and post them on free article sites like www.ezinearticles.com or www.amazines.com

Write press releases and post them on free online press release sites like www.freepressreleases.co.uk or www.prlog.org

Submit your site to free directories like www.freeindex.co.uk

Submit your site to some social bookmarking sites like Digg.

Start a facebook group- I am sure you will get a lot of people to join.

Start twitter- I am new to this but " they say" they get business from it so I am hanging on.

Get to know your business so well then start spending money - I have actually found this helps you get the best out of professionals.

Leaflets might not actually work for your business.



Best wishes,


funmi

 

[scotmum]

Thanks for that. I haven't spent any of it yet. I think the fact that I could waste it on some marketing activity that might last all of 5 mins, is holding me back.

I have been featured in the Mirror today which was just me giving a parenting tip. They actually paid me for that one, so maybe a bit more media like this might do my business good in the short term.

It's harder spending your own money isn't it?

I am going to get a press release written up today and send it to the Scottish news agencies and other parenting magazines and see how that goes. I am much more keen to do features like this as they are free and bring a great deal of traffic to my site. I took out a £1500 advert in a magazine and that has brought me literally one or two people - a total waste of money and a lesson I had to learn the hard way.

 

[Publicity Oxford]

Hello!
Being a mum as well I would keep the cash within the business for now and put every spare moment of your time into building your reputation online - keeping the website content fresh, getting links out there, gaining a following on Twitter, contributing advice through other forums (being careful about their rules with regards to links etc), get great sponsors from family related brands and talk to the press, especially locally - could you write a column for a local magazine.

Save the £500 in case you want to overhaul the website at any time or run a little event locally - how about a coffee morning/creche for local mums to officially launch the site? £500 would pay to hire a village hall and lay on cakes and tea!!

Also don't put too much pressure on yourself, if you're juggling this with a family, it sometimes feels like you have a million things to do, but only get through one or two a day. You will get there, it just takes time.

Hope that helps!

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

As a mum, I can vouch that the hours between 11pm & 1.30am and 4am & 7am can be the most productive times of the day.

 

[scotmum]

I know what you mean - I have been emailing journalists and magazine contacts that I have built up to give them a parenting story that relates to my site. I am surveying mums about various issues and statistics are always interesting to the press, especially if it relates to government policy, etc. The problem for me is that I have a toddler literally pulling me off my lap top or tapping away 'helping' me email. If I get no response, perhaps I'll know why!

I have ordered some free over sized postcards from Vista print which were free, so I am going to take advantage of that so I haven't dipped into the 'stash' yet.

 

[shopNvouchers]

Maybe you could try a bit of Facebook marketing

I think you can target areas!!!

So may bring some good targeted traffic

 

[david poole]

Scotmum - have you got any news?
what mean to say is that through research or by chance have you got anythig news worthy to say.... Im sure that wold make a great press release.

 

[Business Vitamins]

Hi there,

How about utilising your local NCT group for leaflet distribution? As a marketing person and the mother of a 15 month old, when I received a local newsletter from our NCT group that was packed full of useful info, I thought it was very effective. If your message and content are managed well, this could be a good use of funds for you.

As a result of adverts in the magazine and the leaflets they distributed at our ante-natal group, my husband and I signed up for, and found out about, lots of things we would never have heard of otherwise.

Regards,

Selina

PS I tried to post this before but it didn't take, so apologies if you did receive my message already.

 

[scotmum]

Thanks - I did read your post and phoned them straight away. I think that because volunteers that organise the newsletter, they are often unavailable and so I could not get a response from anyone. I have also emailed head office, but no response there either. I wonder if it is because they have an affiliation with the largest mums forum in the UK?

 

[CSRhopefulpro]

In terms of raising awareness of your prpduct no use pouring money into the project if you dont have info about your target audience. Who are they? age? where can they be found? have considered using social media? Facebook, Twitter and you tube are getting massive followings....Perhaps spend 100 of that dosh on a prize for a university student to create a viral for you to post on youtube and therefore your site