My Top 5 tips for ‘new businesses’ starting to spend money on advertising!

My Top 5 tips for ‘new businesses’ starting to spend money on advertising, or hesitating! (It’s scary but once you start you just won’t stop!) For those that say, we don't need to advertise, are you saying you can't handle more customers? - if so, wow! That's a great place to be, but who doesn't want to grow??!!

1- CREATE A PROCESS:

Before spending money you need to know how your company is going to deal with the enquiries. Create a set process (which can change if needed) where you:

- ensure your website is easy to navigate and has clear instructions on how someone would enquire..

- know the time frame to get back to the new enquiries. The sooner the better, leaving it too long may mean they decide against using your service.

- Know the content of your communication and make sure it’s well thought out.

- Book an appointment or relevant business goal within the first call/email

- Create a ‘follow up’ rule

2- WORK OUT HOW MUCH YOU'RE WILLING TO PAY FOR A NEW CUSTOMER:

If you make £500 off a new customer then it may be you want to pay £50 maximum for them to ‘become a customer’ It’s key to know this before starting any advertising. Also, be realistic - we all want a new customer for £5 but you need to work out what's actually likely to happen.

3- PERSEVERE:

Unless you’re really lucky it’s unlikely you will get the whole process ‘right’ straight away. You may need to adapt:

-The advertising message

-The channel or media you are using

-Your contact process

-Your spend

-It will work, you just need the right recipe.

4 - START WITH GOOGLE SEARCH: as a first port of call (In my opinion)

People look for ‘things’ ‘services’ ‘stuff to do’ online! There are plenty of online tutorials of how to use Google for your business, or you can pay someone to do it for you! (Which tends to be the sensible option)

On a side note - print advertising has its place but that 'place' comes a long way down the line in 'best media to use first' list.. its very much dependant on your sector though. If you have a service or product people don't 'look for' you may need to change the channel of advertising.. but as a general rule Google search is the front runner.

5- ALWAYS MONITOR:

You can get enquiries and convert them to sales but you MUST know where they come from otherwise you could be wasting money on one of your channels of advertising!

5.1 (a little bonus) - Don't spend £50 on business cards if you are tight on money, use that money for google or face book spend! People always get excited about starting a business and want to 'get business cards', this is really just an 'ego' thing. Be clever, spend it to get your first customers instead!