Advertising

[Topsie]

Hi

My boyfriend has just started his own Joinery firm after working many years for a building company. Money is a little bit tight atm but obviously we need to advertise him.

He is having a small advert in the yellow pages in april and we have been printing out our own leaflets and delivering them around housing estates to try and get some work.

Does anyone have any other ideas on where he should advertise that doesnt cost too much money. He will continue with the leaflets obviously as he has had 1 or 2 small jobs from them. He has tried the local newspaper but its very expensive and he didnt get any jobs at all from that.

Just wondering about other peoples advertising success with different ways.

Thanks in advance for any advice people can give.

Rebecca

[Bev2007]

I assume he is after the consumer market (ie you and me) rather than contracting to other businesses......
Yellow pages is good (I always go to www.yell.com, and as well as thinking about success others have had, ask them how they find their tradesmen).

Leafrlet small businesses as well as homes.
Lots of effort on word of mouth - get the network working.
What about cards in shop windows and noticeboards.
Do you have a local newsletter/parish news/green pages?
Put a sign up outside your house.
Put a sign up outside the house of any jobs he's doing.
Signage on his van (dont know how much this costs?)

Cant think of anything else.

[Topsie]

Wow thanks very much thats alot to go on. Never thought about the signs outside houses and the local parish newletter.

Thanks alot

Rebecca

[Oneeyedvic]

Parish magazines are superb - go round to all the villages and see what is about - far better than any other advertising at all.

Make sure all your friends, family, neighbours, acquaintances know what your husband does and give them all a few business cards that they can hand round to other people.

Make sure the adverts appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator - a lot of people will not know what a 'joiner' is - tell people explicitly what sort of work he wants.

[blueboris]

problem with yellow pages/thompsons is that unless you appear in the fron page then its not going to work,you need to get out and about dropping leaflets in to houses and card the local shops,its hard work but if you keep at it it will work,where do you live?

[Topsie]

We live in Bolton. We have delivered alot of leaflets so far and put cards in windows of shops.I think the best and cheapest way is to leaflet. Its good excercise too :)

Thanks very much everyone for your help

[silverdaler]

as the owner of a small business i can assure you that personal recommendations are by far the best way of getting work, so make sure that a few cards are left with your satisfied customers, and ask them to pass them on for you. People also prefer to use tradesmen who have been recommended. If your man is good he will soon have lots of work !!
One tip though - make sure they pay IN FULL - worst part of owning your own business is chasing money !
Best of luck to you.

[Barney's pal]

Parish Magazines are excellent. My partner is an electrician and we advertise in one for �15 for the whole year. It goes to four vvillages and we get some decent customers from it.
(Ones that definately going to pay you!!)

[dancecaller]

It can't hurt to have as much free advertising as possible.
Look at
http://www.thomsondirectories.com/nectar/map.a sp
to see if they are in your area.
They give me a free line in their Mid Cheshire book, just the buisness name and phone no. in the classified pages, and my name, buisness name, address and phone in the white pages.
You obviously need a descriptive buisness name.
I find them more helpful than the free line I get in the Yellow pages as we are in the middle on their area map, on the edge of several BT districts.
You can also pay for display adverts in Thomson or Yellow Pages, but need to consider cost.

Look for internet directories that might give you a free line. Does your village/area have a webpage?

[WendyS]

Do you have any local supermarkets nearby? Many of them have bulletin boards where people can put up For Sale notices, or slots where local tradesman can put in their business cards.

[WendyS]

Forgot to mention whether your local council or county council has a regular newsletter that is sent to all ratepayers. If they do it's worth checking whether they accept advertisements. Also in our area we have a Community newsletter that is sent to every household in the district. All the advertisers in that are local and I know that they pick up a lot of business as many people prefer to use local tradesmen.
I also wonder whether local DIY stores like B & Q, Focus, etc have trade boards where you can display a business card.

[goldilocks24]

put his name and tel number/ business address on the side of his van/car - asuming he has one of course, works wonders

[leeherbie]

Leaflets through doors is definately better than newspapers & adverts.

You can get your leaflet from: http://www.pineprint.co.uk
or http://www.printne.co.uk

Regarding advertising, see this: http://www.startups.c...or-your-business.html