$750 - $1000 marketing budget (I'm desperate here)

[nibblesandbits]

So I'm thinking about going all out and really giving this business one big last try before I think about doing something else.

I've been in business for a year now and I haven't really advertised near enough, and I'm almost still in the same place (well if I'm not lying to myself, i AM in the same place) I was when I started. Sure, I have a few customers, a HUGE 8x4 sign pointing toward a main road right before a light where people have to slow down in front in my office. and sure I have my business plastered on the back glass of my '07 Cobalt with my phone and web site...

business cards - check
brochures - check (one for computer repair / maintenance services and one for web design services)
personalized black polos with logo - check

But I haven't tackled radio / newspapers / tv or anything else. Where should I spend this $1,000 to ALMOST (nothing is failproof) guarantee I'll get a return? How far should I spread this $1000 time-wise? 1 month? 2 months? 3 months? 6 months? I'm just trying to go at this full blast (as I should have done on day 1) I've read some self-help books and let my dad criticize me and it's opened my eyes that I need to get off my ass and MAKE business work. I know I have the knowledge and the skill set. I just need a little push from all you guys that have been EXACTLY where I stand.

Thanks everyone!

[angry_geek]

Well, $1,000.00 won't get you in the door with TV advertising, so that's out right there. Radio ads will eat up all of that within 2 months depending on what market you're in. I would put an ad in the local newspaper and another one in the business edition if they have one. You should also check to see if there is a networking group in your area. Rotary is a good, and see about BNI. http://www.bni.com/ or another similar group. These groups have kept me afloat in the slow times and landed some very large contracts for me.

[jj2000]

Well, $1,000.00 won't get you in the door with TV advertising, so that's out right there. Radio ads will eat up all of that within 2 months depending on what market you're in. I would put an ad in the local newspaper and another one in the business edition if they have one. You should also check to see if there is a networking group in your area. Rotary is a good, and see about BNI. http://www.bni.com/ or another similar group. These groups have kept me afloat in the slow times and landed some very large contracts for me.

Agreed with the above also consider local radio phone-in shows as a cheap/free way of getting your business name out there,we did that for a while and it got me a temp slot on the local radio which helped a lot,also your local yellow book and any other local directories are a useful place to advertise.

[Y.F.N.C.G.]

Have you tried hanging fliers with tears-offs at local coffee shops/library/grocery store/anywhere that has room?

Do you have an ad in the yellow pages?

How's your website? Are you ranking well for "computer repair <your area>"?

Don't forget Craig's List. It's free and, although sometimes the people using it are shady, it's a great marketing resource when times are tough!

These are all fairly easy and cheap things to do that have seemed to garner good results for others.

[jbutler9]

Today I received my Door Hangers from printingisourbusiness.com (http://printingisourbusiness.com) and I have to say that I am rather impresses. I spent $200 on 750 door hangers I have included a copy of what I had printed.

for $200 bones I think it was a good deal. I will be only going to the rich parts of town to distribute so I hope that is better for me. that is alot of walking.

look here for the image: Joseph's Live Page (http://cid-317a98cfbfe6efdd.profile.live.com/)

[nj_computer_repair]

Before you spend any money, can you post a link to your website so we can see?

[MaxMon]

Nothing shows where you are located. I can imagine large metro areas "could" be hard to market. But here are some options with nominal financial costs. Break your area into a small neighborhood for marketing. For example, I am preparing some presentations/seminars for our community library. Other places are YMCAs, churches, and community centers. This will get some public face time and build their trust in ones knowledge and business. Offer some fliers that have discounts on them, go door to door, offer trading services, and contact your city chamber, local SCORE rep, and business development center.

Hang in there its the darkest just before dawn.

MaxM
MaxM Technolgy

[usacvlr]

Great big phone book ad

So I'm thinking about going all out and really giving this business one big last try before I think about doing something else.

I've been in business for a year now and I haven't really advertised near enough, and I'm almost still in the same place (well if I'm not lying to myself, i AM in the same place) I was when I started. Sure, I have a few customers, a HUGE 8x4 sign pointing toward a main road right before a light where people have to slow down in front in my office. and sure I have my business plastered on the back glass of my '07 Cobalt with my phone and web site...

business cards - check
brochures - check (one for computer repair / maintenance services and one for web design services)
personalized black polos with logo - check

But I haven't tackled radio / newspapers / tv or anything else. Where should I spend this $1,000 to ALMOST (nothing is failproof) guarantee I'll get a return? How far should I spread this $1000 time-wise? 1 month? 2 months? 3 months? 6 months? I'm just trying to go at this full blast (as I should have done on day 1) I've read some self-help books and let my dad criticize me and it's opened my eyes that I need to get off my ass and MAKE business work. I know I have the knowledge and the skill set. I just need a little push from all you guys that have been EXACTLY where I stand.

Thanks everyone!

[supertech365]

Pray first. Then if I had a do or die budget of a grand, I would want to keep my name out "there" as long as possible. News paper is a good shot. Its affordable and you could be seen longer. Not the classifieds, but something about the size of a 4" x 4" or better. Put your photo in there with your ad. In three months, change your wording and photo. My servicing hours increased by at least three times as much from one month to the next once I added my photo to my advert. People like to put a face to a name. That's why tv ads are so successful. Billy Mays can sell water to a fish, because his face is everywhere. No one cares what he's saying. And put yourself where people are, so you can work your mouth piece. Take every chance you can to sell your services. And pray again.

[nibblesandbits]

Well, $1,000.00 won't get you in the door with TV advertising, so that's out right there. Radio ads will eat up all of that within 2 months depending on what market you're in. I would put an ad in the local newspaper and another one in the business edition if they have one. You should also check to see if there is a networking group in your area. Rotary is a good, and see about BNI. http://www.bni.com/ or another similar group. These groups have kept me afloat in the slow times and landed some very large contracts for me.

I have a competitor pretty close who is using radio A LOT. I almost think he'd have to know someone at the station that's giving him a deal or free advertising (perhaps they are bartering) I just know that EVERY hour you will hear their commercial on a local radio station. No way any of us could afford that in the computer repair business... uh... right?

I'm going to do as you suggested and get my ad back in the local papers. I found out you can get in a few local small towns (that have no computer repair) for about $15 / month. Not bad for 4 issues.

BNI - I have been to it, I do agree that it works, my main problem is I went as a substitute for a friend of mine EVERY WEEK and made the offer to design our local chapter a web site and they were all for it. Then I buy a new car and tell them I'd like to get the money for the work instead of joining with it and they turn their back to that idea after making it seem they were all for it during the meeting that day. Oh well - I have no use for my local chapter anymore.

Rotary - I've heard of, but not have been introduced. Do you mind explaining what it is because I have no idea.

[nibblesandbits]

Have you tried hanging fliers with tears-offs at local coffee shops/library/grocery store/anywhere that has room?

Do you have an ad in the yellow pages?

How's your website? Are you ranking well for "computer repair <your area>"?

Don't forget Craig's List. It's free and, although sometimes the people using it are shady, it's a great marketing resource when times are tough!

These are all fairly easy and cheap things to do that have seemed to garner good results for others.

Fliers - I did that when I first when I went into business. Did nothing for me, may be because I didn't do it long enough or even go back and check that they were still there a week later.

Yellow Pages - I don't really want to spend 1/2 my budget in a phone book that I've seen firsthand MY family throw away when it comes. Everyone I know (I'm not exaggerating) even my grandfather uses switchboard.com or an online service.

Local listings on google - "computer repair jane lew" WITHOUT quotes put me second in local listings and third in organic listings.

Craig's list - there is no local section that's within a 45 minute drive so that kinda sucks. I have put an ad on it before, will try it again though.

[nibblesandbits]

Today I received my Door Hangers from printingisourbusiness.com (http://printingisourbusiness.com) and I have to say that I am rather impresses. I spent $200 on 750 door hangers I have included a copy of what I had printed.

for $200 bones I think it was a good deal. I will be only going to the rich parts of town to distribute so I hope that is better for me. that is alot of walking.

look here for the image: Joseph's Live Page (http://cid-317a98cfbfe6efdd.profile.live.com/)
Love the idea of door hangers. Do you know if there is an Avery Template? I'd much rather print any marketing materials like business cards, brochures, fliers, and other things of the sort myself because I lease a printer for over $200 / month and I think I should get use out of it. lol

BTW - I looked at your design and like the idea, I may use the design and just make some modifications, if that is okay with you? If not, that's fine I'll get my creative juices flowing. haha

[nibblesandbits]

Before you spend any money, can you post a link to your website so we can see?
Thanks for your reply, my web site is http://www.jteknet.net or http://www.pcrepairwv.com (both are the same)

I'm going to be redesigning it because between your forum members and I - I HATE my site. haha I'm always so busy working on other people's problems and sites that I haven't made my own very good. I haven't actually gotten business from my web site but one time - I'd say probably because the lack of design quality and ease of navigation.

[nibblesandbits]

Nothing shows where you are located. I can imagine large metro areas "could" be hard to market. But here are some options with nominal financial costs. Break your area into a small neighborhood for marketing. For example, I am preparing some presentations/seminars for our community library. Other places are YMCAs, churches, and community centers. This will get some public face time and build their trust in ones knowledge and business. Offer some fliers that have discounts on them, go door to door, offer trading services, and contact your city chamber, local SCORE rep, and business development center.

Hang in there its the darkest just before dawn.

MaxM
MaxM Technolgy

Imagine the smallest town you know. Now add two people to that town and you have arrived at mine. :D I'm currently serving clients Clarksburg, Jane Lew, Weston, and Buckhannon West Virginia. All of which have a population of less than 50,000 people. With 3 out of the 4 having less than 20,000 people.

Can you tell me how you go about offering presentations / seminars? I would love to learn how to do this myself. Seems like a very cheap and effective method of advertising seeing as you establish yourself as the EXPERT (which is what ONLINE marketing, at least, is all about)

[nibblesandbits]

I think I had better stop posting replies. I will continue replying to any other replies when I figure out how to include multiple quotes in one message. lol

[nibblesandbits]

I FIGURED IT OUT, YAY! lol SORRY DON'T BAN ME FROM THE FORUMS FOR BEING STUPID AND POSTING 10 posts in a row. :(

Pray first. Then if I had a do or die budget of a grand, I would want to keep my name out "there" as long as possible. News paper is a good shot. Its affordable and you could be seen longer. Not the classifieds, but something about the size of a 4" x 4" or better. Put your photo in there with your ad. In three months, change your wording and photo. My servicing hours increased by at least three times as much from one month to the next once I added my photo to my advert. People like to put a face to a name. That's why tv ads are so successful. Billy Mays can sell water to a fish, because his face is everywhere. No one cares what he's saying. And put yourself where people are, so you can work your mouth piece. Take every chance you can to sell your services. And pray again.

Photo seems like a really good idea. I haven't been using a photo on my materials. I think I'm going to get a good one and put it on my materials. My brochure has a nice picture of me on the back at the bottom of me standing in the yard on a hill dressed up. Not 100% appropriate, but it has worked until I got something better to put there.

Praying isn't going to help anyone.

Haha. Amen. (No pun intended)

Great big phone book ad

I explained why I don't want to do this in another reply up there.

[angry_geek]

http://www.rotary.org/en/Pages/ridefault.aspx

[Doctor Micro]

You've got a relatively small market, and from the sounds of it, a big competitor on the Radio. What you want is for people to think of you when their computer goes on the fritz. All the suggestions mentioned previously do the same thing, just by different methods.

Join the Chamber of Commerce if you haven't done so already. Most Chambers have some sort of networking get-togethers after-hours occasionally. Grab a stack of business cards and go mingle.

Get some graphics that you can put on your rear side window glass, so it can be seen from the side while you're parked or at a traffic light.

Flyers and Door-Hangers can help. You can even hire a high-school kid to distribute them for you.

If you have any clubs, assisted-living or retirement communities in your area, go offer to hold some basic computer seminars and self-help sessions.

A business card-sized ad in some of your local papers and shopper guides shouldn't cost you too much.

If you have a local newspaper that does not have a "Computer Tips 'n' Tricks" column, offer to write one for them on a regular basis, for free (Hint: Write up a dummy column sample and bring it with you when you go talk to the editor and please spell check it and have someone check the grammar before you go live with it.)

Business cards: Don't leave home without 'em. Give 'em out like candy to every new person you meet. Leave two with every client; one for them to keep and one to share with a neighbor, friend or relative.

Use your shoe leather and pay a courtesy visit to local businesses in the area that you would like to have as clients to introduce yourself, leave a brochure and/or your business card. Ask them to consider calling you for any computer services they might need or want in the future.

Make sure your home customers know that you also service businesses, and vice-versa.

Reconsider a modest phone book ad. Not everybody throws them away, and going to switchboard.com isn't an option if their computer is fried or internet isn't working.

All I can think of for the moment. *need more coffee*

[bagellad]

I second the phone book add, I pay about 600 bucks a year for a small basic one, but i got maybe 2 customers a week from it and more phone calls. Some turning out to be long term.

[supertech365]

hey nibbles. how are things going so far? did any thing work for you? Update if possible

[nibblesandbits]

hey nibbles. how are things going so far? did any thing work for you? Update if possible
Hey, yeah I've been away from these forums for quite a while. Turns out I didn't use that $1000 to market. Instead I just decided to go ahead and put ads in local papers. I've also coupled this with a new referral program I'm doing and it seems to have made my business MORE than double (but that's because no matter what multiplier you use with ZERO business you still get ZERO business) lol But anyway, all my lame jokes that make no sense aside - I'm now getting at least 5 jobs per week. It sounds like nothing - but to me, it's crazy. For the first time in my life, I can say I'm MAKING money enough to actually justify paying to get incorporated - only meaning I actually have the filing fee and CPA fees laying around to do it, whereas, up to this point I hadn't.

Also, my business has now been running for over a year and a half and I think for the most part - the reason it's picking up is my 57-customer-strong customer base is now "advertising" for me. They are telling all their friends and their friends are telling people. I'm doing this without a sign and a measley little ad in a local rag that most people probably miss. I have found that using the ad consistently is helping my exposure and also my credibility as being a legit business. They know if I'm keeping myself in the paper I have to be a real business, not a fly-by-night. I missed last week so I think I may start doing my ad every other week. At almost $20 / week, it's a pretty big expense for me yet.

Sorry for not paragraphing and probably using the worst punctuation known to man. I've been up since 7 after going to bed at 1 this morning. I'm beat. I'm doing well to just keep my eyes open to finish this computer restore, let alone type a long post. lol

I am getting ready to search the forum for "workflows" people are using. If you have a good one that you'd like to share (i.e. Call from ad comes in -> You get name and schedule a time to be on-site or have a drop off -> Ghost the drive as your first boot -> run your utilities to check for problems -> remove / fix "problems" -> verify fix -> contact customer (email/sms/phone) -> return computer to customer) That is very generalized, I was thinking more specific, but that's what I'm looking for. I just want to compare it to my workflow, mine is efficient enough, but I want to see what others are doing.

Alright guys, I'm out of here as for typing. I'll leave the forums up on my desktop and watch for any responses. Until then - back to the PC restore I'm doing. (By customer request, I'm not a "nuke and pave" every computer kinda guy. ;])

[mmanna]

I also must add my two cents in support of the yellow pages. For what it's worth, we started in YellowBook as it was the cheapest, but didn't find it to be particularly effective. Once we got into Superpages (Verizon) with a small ad, things picked up a bit, and then when we went to a business card sized ad for about $90/mo, we started getting lots of new calls. I've always asked people how they heard about us, and far more people say yellow pages than "saw your sign" or "found you online." As someone else pointed out, web-based directories aren't very helpful if your computer won't boot or if you're having problems getting online. We have continued slowly growing our yellow pages exposure over the past 4 years and found it to be very effective. Our local radio station was a complete waste of time ... we didn't even get one phone call for the $600 we spent over 3 months. I haven't tried newspaper advertising but I think people have become "immune" to the ads and just focus on the articles. I don't read the newspaper very often, but even when I do, I don't ever remember even looking at the ads.

[DohIForgot]

Good ideas... I'm about to put an ad in the phone book as well as do newspaper ads in our local paper. We should finalize our truck wrap tomorrow and it should (hopefully) be done by the end of the week... I've also done flyer drops with coupons (today), we'll see how that goes - traffic is already going up on the site, so cross my fingers...

[PCSupportGlasgow]

I think people have become "immune" to the ads and just focus on the articles. I don't read the newspaper very often, but even when I do, I don't ever remember even looking at the ads.

Yes very true but if your quick enough to get in with your small local newspaper (e.g. the one that given away free at corner shops etc), you can then offer to donate some of your time as the papers IT expert. With this you can go three ways depending on what your most happy with 1) you be their rent-a-quote on IT in the news or 2) Q&A column where you answer a couple of IT problems from readers or 3) Column on computer articles every issue.

As these papers are normally run on little or no budget they will be quite happy to gain column inches for free, Also it free advertising for you every issue and in the readers mind propels you as better than the other techs who are paying for advertising or even those locally that dont advertise.

[nj_computer_repair]

Thanks for your reply, my web site is http://www.jteknet.net or http://www.pcrepairwv.com (both are the same)

I'm going to be redesigning it because between your forum members and I - I HATE my site. haha I'm always so busy working on other people's problems and sites that I haven't made my own very good. I haven't actually gotten business from my web site but one time - I'd say probably because the lack of design quality and ease of navigation.

I think your site is pretty good, not really hard to navigate at all. How long have you had it up? I am surprised that you only got 1 customer from it.

Having your picture up there is good business too. Customers love that.

I think you just need to advertise your website more and get more traffic to it.

[ell]

Have you tried hanging fliers with tears-offs at local coffee shops/library/grocery store/anywhere that has room?

Do you have an ad in the yellow pages?

How's your website? Are you ranking well for "computer repair <your area>"?

Don't forget Craig's List. It's free and, although sometimes the people using it are shady, it's a great marketing resource when times are tough!

These are all fairly easy and cheap things to do that have seemed to garner good results for others.

Y.F.N.C.G. is dead on, I've been in business only two years and work has doubled only from exhaustive work on getting my site in the top ten in google, all my adv is free, I do hear where yellow pages might be worth it. Definitely use Craigslist, it gets you exposure even though you do get alot of cheap customers.

[Trigger_this]

Wow within 2 months you went from nothing to 57 customers... I only hope i'm that lucky for 2010... keep the suggestions and comments coming in, i'm learning alot!

[nibblesandbits]

Wow within 2 months you went from nothing to 57 customers... I only hope i'm that lucky for 2010... keep the suggestions and comments coming in, i'm learning alot!
Sorry, that wasn't in two months, I may have made it unclear.

I have about 65 customers now after being in business almost a year and a half. Getting 50 customers in 2 months, I'd have to make the entire wall of my office a "bench" to set them all on. lol

Would be nice though. :) *dreams*

[Trigger_this]

07-14-2009 Is when you said you had nothing... 09-22-2009 is when you said you had 57 customers...

That's a little over 2 months...

anyways whatever the time frame congratulations

[nibblesandbits]

07-14-2009 Is when you said you had nothing... 09-22-2009 is when you said you had 57 customers...

That's a little over 2 months...

anyways whatever the time frame congratulations
Ah, I see where it may have come off that way. I had at least 50 of my 65 at the time of that first post, I just didn't have any business coming in the door. They were past clients that just didn't need my assistance because I fixed their problems right and put Avast on them (don't let anybody tell you this isn't the best A/V ever or at least in the top 10 haha) it will catch almost everything you may get in my experience.

As for the time lapsed between the second post and now, I've gained the other 15 since then.

Thanks, and good luck in your business.