Unless you have the luxury of being able to pay to build a brand, your adverts need to pay their way.
You need to make sure that you’re tracking response from your ads.
It’s rare to be asked where you found out about a business and, with the internet taking so much of people’s share of mind it’s easy to get lazy about tracking which adverts are paying their way and which adverts are just “there” but aren’t contributing to your bottom line profit.
Flyers are cheap – maybe £100 for a batch, printed in full colour on both sides.
But cheap doesn’t mean nasty.
Used correctly, flyers are quick way to drum up more sales for your business.
Magnetic vehicle signs aren’t used much in the UK but that doesn’t mean they don’t work.
They’re inexpensive and mean that you don’t have to go to the trouble and expense of sign writing your vehicle (which could be awkward if it doubles up as the family car or expensive when the time comes to sell it).
Postcard marketing is something that should be done more often.
Postcards evoke a holiday or special occasion feel and there’s the extra advantage that there’s no envelope to open, so your message is instantly seen.
They’re also cheap – there are services here in the UK that will print and mail your postcard design in small quantities for less than the cost of a 2nd class stamp.
I’m going to talk about low-cost ways to get more sales.
Because, let’s face it almost every business wants more sales – especially profitable ones!
Generally speaking, most people need persudaing to spend money. Sure, some people use “retail therapy” but that certainly doesn’t include everyone in the world.
One low cost way to do this is to create a Facebook page. At the moment, this is free to do (excluding the cost your time or whatever you pay to a designer).
Facebook don’t charge you directly to create a page – maybe because this is still a relatively new feature for them, maybe because they figure that the cost of hosting a page is approaching zero and they should be able to more than make that back from selling adverts on the page you create. Whatever the real reason, it doesn’t matter. It just matters that it’s free to create a Facebook page.
Everyone from Coca Cola downwards is doing this.
And they’re training people to go direct to Facebook by putting that web address in their adverts rather than their “real” domain.
Why?
Because almost everyone in their target audience is a member of Facebook. So they know there’s no barrier to people going to that page.
They also know that some people will “like” their page, so updates to the page will appear in their Facebook summary and the “like” will show to their friends.
It’s a really low cost form of marketing.
And it doesn’t just apply to big business. And it no longer applies just to B2C (business to consumer) companies – it’s working well for B2B (business to business) companies as well.
In fact, Facebook works well for anyone who has any kind of customers.
Which means you need a Facebook page for your company!
This video explains more:
You might be wondering what that title has to do with business or anything else in your life.
After all, a vacuum is quite a rare thing – even outer space isn’t a pure vacuum.
But we can get close enough in areas of our lives. And when we do, great things start to happen as if by magic.
This post is a longer answer to a text I received from Dave Hyner today.
It sounded innocent enough: “What would your top tip advice be to a micro business owner?”
But, as ever with Dave, there’s a lot buried just under the surface – that’s why he’s good at what he does.
I sent a short-ish text back:
Here’s a longer explanation of that answer:
Most of the time when I suggest to someone that they write a report or even a book, I get a look of disbelief.
They think that you have to be someone special to be a published author.
The plus point is that this goes for most everyone – including your potential customers.
Writing a report or a book doesn’t have to be hard. You just have to be reasonably organised.
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