Would anyone use this service?

Discussion in 'Just Talk' started by Thebizexpert, Jun 24, 2017.

  1. Thebizexpert

    Thebizexpert New Member

    Hi All,

    Am not trying to spam or sell anything, just trying to gauge whether there would be interest from those in the trades around my business idea.

    Basically, I am a marketing consultant (yes I know it sounds a bit wanky), and am setting up a consultancy that basically offers really cheap and easy ways for small businesses to extend their reach to a wider audience.

    Do people need it, or is everyone always rushed off of their feet? Would someone be prepared to pay up to £500 to get their website ranking higher in Google, or to maybe have social media plan in place?


    For the sake of giving an idea of what I mean - see a blog which I have posted, which is made to help those with their own business get ahead on Google, but is anyone interest in this type of thing?


    Please do be honest in your feedback, and apologies if this is not the place to post!
     
  2. P J Thompson

    P J Thompson Active Member

    Hi, if my email inbox and cold calls to my phone are anything to go by, there are a lot of people doing it. A lot.
    A lot of them don't seem to have a clue though.
    I've had conversations like:
    Seo guy: I can get you onto page one of Google
    Me: I already am.
    Seo guy: not here you're not.
    Me: where are you?
    Seo guy: Manchester.
    Me: to be honest I've no interest in quoting for a fence repair that's 300 miles away. Good day to you sir.

    I imagine if you live in a densely populated area with lots of competition, seo guys may help but here you rank pretty high in search results as soon as you get your site indexed.
     
  3. Thebizexpert

    Thebizexpert New Member

    Thanks PJ! Yes, I guess there a lot of SEO agencies around, and I imagine the cold calls are ridiculous if they really don't understand the localised nature of your work too.

    Am based in London, so judging by your last sentence there may be hope!

    Are there any other services that you would find of use? Design, PR that kind of thing? No worries if you don't have time to reply, it's just really useful to understand what people do (and don't) want.

    Thanks again!
     
  4. Jord86

    Jord86 Screwfix Select

    £500 is not really cheap if you're paying for other forms of advertising at the same time. Trouble is the market is flooded with the likes of this, had a very recent phone conversation with a marketing consultant from a large internet advertising company,

    Him- "I can get you on the first page, first in the list, beating all your other competitors for a very reasonable cost",

    Me "you are aware I'm a sole trader, and my advertising budget is in the region of £40 a month, how much roughly would that be then?"

    Him "only £320 a month, plus vat"

    Me "ahahahahah are you serious??? :confused:"


    The real problem lies with middlemen (who have zero trade knowledge) passing on details of customers/trades, then if and when an issue arises, they go to ground and cover their arses by maintaining radio silence until the problem goes away, whilst still billing the tradesman for their poor customer relations, you only have to look at the likes of rated people, checkatrade, my builder, myworkman(my personal hatred, complete scam) to see the negative feedback throughout the internet.

    The main question to ask yourself is what are you offering that's any different from countless other companies and websites?
     
  5. Thebizexpert

    Thebizexpert New Member

    Thanks Jord,

    My idea is more to meet with a business owner to help them to set up a full plan for year which would be the £500- and then get them to implement themselves for that amount (and that wouldn't just be SEO either but a full marketing plan including ideas for ad placements, PR, social media, emails, etc), though of course if someone wanted support, that's where the the monthly cost would rack up! An SEO plan would be around £250 (one off, not per month).

    I guess you guys on here are probably pretty tech savvy anyway (that's why you're here!), but am hoping to help small sole traders, who with a few simple steps could get more customers. I suppose it's more training than agency if that makes sense.

    Sorry, not trying to sell it to you personally - and thank you for being a sounding board!
     
  6. Jord86

    Jord86 Screwfix Select

    That's another thing though, I don't think there'll be many sole traders that will pay you a one off lump sum for the year, I wouldn't anyways, how can I be sure my business will get the maximum coverage I'm paying my money for? What assurances would I have? If I pay the money and get bugger all for six months would I be entitled to a refund, or is it tough luck bud? Small business owners are still the same as dithering customers I'm afraid, 'I want the best possible, but I want it cheap!' It doesn't sound something I would jump at, personally speaking, £500 for me is 4years worth of advertising with the company I currently do, which the work I've had from could advertise me with them for at least another 20. Not really a comparison for me I'm afraid.
     
  7. CraigMcK

    CraigMcK Screwfix Select

    The thing is a lot of your targets (small business, one man band) rely on repeat business and word of mouth rather than blowing £500 on someone to tell them where they are going wrong.
    Also if you are meeting them for £500 I assume you expect them to come to you?
     
  8. Thebizexpert

    Thebizexpert New Member

    Hi Craig, I guess you're sort of answering my question - I think my ask is around the demand (as in demands on your time), so, if I could say, get someone an extra 2 jobs per month, they wouldn't think it worth the money, but if it's an extra 10 jobs per month, then perhaps it's not feasible to fulfil. Would that be about right?

    Haha, of course I would come to them - that's the point, to really have an in depth consultation around what they need (e.g new customers, repeat customers, reputation improvement etc), and I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable doing that without meeting someone on their home turf!

    Certainly not about telling people where they are going wrong, more making tweaks to get more custom - not necessarily web related either, it could be repositioning ad spend (one magazine for another), or running a loyalty campaign (none of that would be £500 either, £500 would be a consultation, followed by a full marketing plan on and off line, with explanations of how to implement.

    Thanks again for your time! It's much appreciated.
     
  9. Thebizexpert

    Thebizexpert New Member

    Jord thank you! I was thinking about a money back type thing - but it's tricky, as it would depend on someone following the instructions unless it's a full service, which is really for larger organisations, who are spending on that rather than employing someone. Would I suppose also need to be based around enquiries and the like, as obviously, I can organise more enquiries, but if the trader cannot convert them (e.g ridiculous quotes or terrible on the phone etc), I can't really help that!
     
  10. fillyboy

    fillyboy Screwfix Select

    A local newspaper is about a grand a year for a small box ad, rated people and the like are at least £800 a year, where do you advertise, in 'The Watchtower' magazine?
     
  11. Jord86

    Jord86 Screwfix Select

    Not sure if you were being sarky then, I advertise with an internet company that has businesses registered on their site, customers post a job, and traders contact the customer to possibly quote for their job. £10 a month.
     
  12. Jord86

    Jord86 Screwfix Select

    It would be tricky, you're quite right, which is why I enquired how you were planning to approach things, I wasn't criticizing, trying to be constructive. A lot of job websites unfortunately attract the types of customers that either have a bottom of the barrel job needs doing (put up a curtain rail perhaps in a gulag), or are tighter than a nuns chuff and don't want to pay more than a tenner, so again, you'd have to market your business differently to stand out from the throng, I think.
     
  13. Thebizexpert

    Thebizexpert New Member

    Guys thanks so much - appreciate your help! I'm sure you all do it already, but do ensure you're on Google My Business (it's free and very easy), and, if you're not - do please take read of the blog (no I don't do advertising on my site, not asking for links, etc etc ), just it's helpful, and you've helped me! Thank you again!
     
  14. fillyboy

    fillyboy Screwfix Select

    I was being a bit sarky/comedic with the watchtower comment, but serious about the costs I quoted. £10 a month is seriously cheap and if you get results from that, then fairplay, that's a good deal.
    I pay about £20 a month for my own website with vistaprint, it works reasonably well, would work better if I invested more time on it.
     
  15. Jord86

    Jord86 Screwfix Select

    Whereabouts in the country are you? As I've advertised in the local rags in South Wales over the last 6 years and its always averaged £30 a month each, £1000 a year seems huge to me. Being honest I've not had any worthwhile jobs off the site I've been on this year yet though, but what I've had off it the last two years as I mentioned earlier I can keep advertising without a loss for ages and ages.
     
  16. fillyboy

    fillyboy Screwfix Select

    Cornwall, being quite remote there will be less choice for local papers so they can charge more. A bit like St Austell Breweries having an almost virtual monopoly in Cornwall, I can get a pint of Tribute cheaper almost anywhere else in the country than in Cornwall.
     
  17. Just another viewpoint regarding advertising of any sort.

    Minor spending might only bring in minor amount of work. But there is no point bringing in too many enquiries too quickly, or there will be a lot of disappointed potential customers, along with the associated bad publicity that would bring.

    For advertising to work well for a small trader it needs to bring in enough responses when the work is drying up or at a small and steady pace that can be coped with.

    My philosophy is simply, run a website for general enquiries, yell.com for the same thing (my best source of work from totally new customers), running continually. Additional advertising when the work dries up, (I have 2 months every year that are always quiet, so it is easy to predict when to spend) limits the expense to known periods.

    My view, for most small traders, is knowing what work is most profitable, and when it happens, and workking accordingly. Spending money without understanding what you want is wasted money.

    Spend when income is poor, save when income is good. Why advertise if you are busy?
     
    Thebizexpert likes this.
  18. Jord86

    Jord86 Screwfix Select

    Ah, beer, now you're talking my primitive language! Shame that you've got to somewhat trade such a beautiful area to pay a premium though, do you personally have much success with advertising in your area, or is word of mouth your main asset?
     
  19. Jord86

    Jord86 Screwfix Select

    Quite right, but you do need ongoing custom, and some people's ideal perspective of a good tradesman is he's booked up in advance for quite a while (apparently it means he must be good :rolleyes:,) I've always had very limited success from local advertising myself, am slowly building a website via my I.T. literate mate, for the reasons you said, constant general enquiries. Seems to be horses for courses, what works for one tradesman doesn't seem to work for another.
     
  20. P J Thompson

    P J Thompson Active Member

    I think that being in the big city could well help you but the flip side will obviously be increased competition.

    Regarding design, again I can imagine that in a city environment it's more important that you have page ranking seo like meta tags and keywords nailed on your site. In a more rural setting it doesn't seem to matter as much. Obviously you need a certain amount to get seen at all in a search but if you just have the areas you serve and the services you offer, it seems to work ok.
    I did put a fair amount of work into getting back links and directory listings but in hindsight it was probably largely wasted effort....in my location. I work in a small area and nowadays it tends to be word of mouth that brings the most work in, seconded by yell.com.

    Website design could be a help for a lot of folks. Mine is real basic, real simple and could be a lot slicker. That said, it was easy to build using the host's software and does it's job. In a more competitive environment such as London it's probably more important to have it slick and polished.
     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice