Promoting Yourself ~ Your best method?

[~Jenny~]

Good evening geeks,

I was sitting here pondering on various ways of promoting my business, looking for new ideas that I may not have tried over the last few years or maybe looking for a new slant on a tried and tested method!

Now I know many will say word of mouth is the best way of getting your name out there and I do agree that this is a great way of increasing your client list....but, to save repetition on the thread, I'd like to leave this out!

So, with the exception of Word of Mouth, what have you found to be your best way of gaining new clients.

One answer per geek!!!

xx :hug: xx

 

[Bagpuss]

Local Rags...They are usually a little booklet that lists all the local bunineses....they get posted to every door in our village...(something that would take days to do on foot with leaflets...and that many leaflets would costs ALOT)....people tend to hang onto these booklets cos they have electrician, plumbers etc in.....the one thats in out area is called "The Directory"....and its posted out once per month....for a quarter page is about £36...there is no minimum spend so you can do as many or as little months as you like.

It worked very well for me when i started out.

 

[jo1983]

Local Rags...They are usually a little booklet that lists all the local bunineses....they get posted to every door in our village...(something that would take days to do on foot with leaflets...and that many leaflets would costs ALOT)....people tend to hang onto these booklets cos they have electrician, plumbers etc in.....the one thats in out area is called "The Directory"....and its posted out once per month....for a quarter page is about £36...there is no minimum spend so you can do as many or as little months as you like.

It worked very well for me when i started out.

that's such good value, think i will have to have a look into this myself!!!

 

[glitz and glam]

when my kids are going to their friends houses there parents (who i dont socialise with out of school) ask for my addy and phone number. I just hand them a biz card.
Got a couple from that and its cheap!

Are you sure we can only put one down~? lol

 

[Elegance Nail Tech]

Facebook works for me. I put current offers on my status x

 

[Blue Rose]

Hmm, have loads of ideas so will be tough just picking one...

For me I would say join as many networking groups as possible. I'm a member of our Chamber of Commerce & have been to lots of other social networking events - have picked up quite a bit of business from this plus got some good contacts.

One of which is a woman in marketing & PR & who has written some articles for me & helped me quite a bit. She's not overly expensive either.

Okay, I'm going to cheat now & add another one, following on from what already has been said.

We have 3 local A4 magazines which get delivered in our area. I've managed to secure a place in the better one of them to become the local health & beauty 'expert'. I get almost 1/2 page of editorial each month then just pay a concession rate for a 1/8th page advert.

Next month will be the 1st insertion of my 'expertise' so it will be interesting to see what follow up & business I get from that.

 

[KristaBurgess]

Get your self on the internet. As already mentione FaceBook is probably th emost accessible to most. Create a "Page" to promote your business. Make sure you call it something descriptive. Invite all your friends and encourage them to invite theres. Update it regularly iwht photos, news offers, testimonials etc.

Add your self to directory websites, like thomson, hotfrog etc. do a google search for "local directories" and youll get loads that you can post on for free.

Websites are pretty easy to make these days and often they are free to make. Depending on how clever you are with computers you can get something decent and indexed in google for nothing but a few hours of your time.

My website gets me lots of work from google, my boyfriend did it for me for free. He could do the same for you for a few hundred pounds I imagine. Websites last for ever, leaflets get thrown in the bin!

Heres my website if your interested Bio Sculpture Gel Nails in St Albans, Hertfordshire

 

[ADiva1]

Good evening geeks,

I was sitting here pondering on various ways of promoting my business, looking for new ideas that I may not have tried over the last few years or maybe looking for a new slant on a tried and tested method!

Now I know many will say word of mouth is the best way of getting your name out there and I do agree that this is a great way of increasing your client list....but, to save repetition on the thread, I'd like to leave this out!

So, with the exception of Word of Mouth, what have you found to be your best way of gaining new clients.

One answer per geek!!!

xx :hug: xx

Do your sister/mother/cousin/niece/daughter's nails and get your work out there!

Ruth Mills on here does fabulous websites for extremely competitive prices, so p.m. her!:hug:

 

[WaxGirl]

Text messaging new offers to existing clients - works every time! Get bookings from it and gets my number onto there phone, makes it easy fro some of them to book by text too.

 

[~Jenny~]

Some fab ideas there geeks!!

For those of you who send out email newsletters to clients....how often do you send them out? I was thinking once a month would be frequent enough...

I know I said only one answer per geek but seeing as there have been such great ideas, feel free to add more!!

xx

 

[Jenx]

I have to agree with the internet, getting on google maps has really helped me as if you google 'spray tan in xxxxx' google maps usually rates as No1 so all spray tan people come up. There are only a few listed on there for my area.
Having said that, I haven't really tried any other forms of advertising xx

 

[Lynne Baker]

Networking!
Check out these network groups

Ladies Who Latte
The Athena Network

 

[loves lashes]

Hi if your ever looking for a nail bar to rent doing gel's im in Welwyn Garden!

 

[TweezerHappy]

Internet definitely. Most if my clients found my website through google. Also Gumtee. The last time I placed an ad was back in April. Clients are still contacting me from that. One was a Shellac party last week. Some people place ads on Gumtree all the time but that's been 4 months for me and it's still bringing me business.

 

[kezza*]

I have done no end of paid advertising and my best was a leaflet drop in my area. I have no end from that.

I do get alot from the internet deffo.

 

[skankinchar]

When I started work in my current salon we did a special offer in our local paper with a voucher that had to be brought into the salon. It's worked really well as people have come in to take advantage of the deal, have been pleased with the results and have rebooked!

 

[micha]

Hya,

contact local businesses and offices and offer them a discount and ask them to send an email round or put the offer on the intranet.

Facebook page is a must and i've come accross some free directorys such as free index Free US business directory - FreeIndex, i think its that. Also gumtree is quite cheap to advertise on £4.99 I think.

I've also seen a website called The Trusted Beauty Guide who sells treatments and packages for therapists and spa's online and only take a 20% commission, advertising is free and you only pay the commission if someone books. The Trusted Beauty Guide is the name

Hope this helps

 

[CharE]

I no longer advertise in newspapers as i feel for me has been more or less a waste of money.

The best by far of advertising i've done is contacting local woman groups e.g slimming world, weight watchers ect, and asked the group leader to come into my salon and offered her a free treatment so she could see what i was like and the salon , if she liked it she would recommend the salon 2 her members. i gave her 10% discount vouchers to give 2 all her club members.

This by far has worked best for me. Ended up getting 30 loyal clients! Best of all it only cost me the price of one treatment and some printing.

Oh and NETWORING helps!

 

[Timeless Tanning]

I attend a Weight Watchers class myself and offer all the ladies that get to goal a free tan. This is a great way of getting your work out there and leads to more business.

x