I think that it pays dividends to be a bit picky. Before you do any advertising or marketing at all take some time to sit down and work out who your ideal client is. What size of business do they have? Do they have staff? Are they an established business or new? When you're answering these keep in mind the sort of services you offer.
When you have a profile of your customer it'll be far easier to target them properly. The biggest mistake, I think, is trying to market your services to everyone and making them appeal to no one. You end up throwing money away.
Through your client profile you'll know what newspapers they'll read, what shops they'll visit how to word your letters so that they are read, etc.
Hope this helps a bit.
Kris
Quick P.S. Thats a very nice site you have.
-- Edited by kjmcculloch on Wednesday 14th of July 2010 10:37:54 PM
The views expressed in this post are my own personal (HRA protected) views, and are not representative of any organisation I have any involvement with.
Try businesslink as I understand you can put your details on there for free and I spoke to someone the other night who said it was proving quite good for leads. Another avenue is a networking club like the BNI, alhtough these generally are a breakfast meeting so early start and you have to pay for breakfast! Also talk to local accountants who may need the services of a bookkeeper.
I would echo what both Kris and Phil have said, especially if you see a smaller accountant and tell him/her that you are getting accountancy work in and you would like to pass work on so long as they can pass bookkeeping on to you.
I notice you have a lot of experience within charities, I would suggest you target this niche market. Charities seem to pay reasonably well and usually on time and often the smaller ones are run by a band of people who don't understand about the finances. See if there are any pre-school clubs/after school clubs. These sometimes run as a charity and even if they are not they usually need help with their books and as they are normally run by women I think they may like a female bookkeeper.
